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Debt Rattle October 25 2024

Oct 252024
 
 October 25, 2024  Posted by at 8:51 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  68 Responses »


Rembrandt van Rijn Study of the Head and Clasped Hands of a Young Man as Christ in Prayer 1655

 

• Harris Claims Trump Is Literally Hitler As Dems Enter Election Panic Mode (ZH)
• Dems: Trump Was Going To Be Hitler During His First Term, But He Forgot (BBee)
• Trump Responds To Harris Over Hitler Comment (RT)
• The Press and Pundits Face Devastating Polls on Threat to Democracy (Turley)
• Word Salad City (ZH)
• Kamala’s Inane Talking Points (Victor Davis Hanson)
• Why is Bill Gates Backing Kamala Harris Using Shady Super PAC? (Sp.)
• ‘No Justice In The West’ – Putin (RT)
• Russia To Seize Income From Frozen Western Assets – Finance Minister (RT)
• US Making ‘Big Mistake’ By Weaponizing Dollar – Putin (RT)
• West’s Belief It Can Defeat Russia ‘A Mere Illusion’ – Putin (RT)
• Seven NATO Members Against Ukraine Membership – Politico (RT)
• Is Western Civilizational Decline Too Advanced to Be Reversed? (PCR)
• EU President Likens Free Speech to Infectious Disease (Leake)
• F-35’s Ascent and Nosedive: Costliest Weapon in History Hits Fresh Turbulence (Sp.)
• Boeing Workers Reject Wage Deal To End Strike (RT)
• Fighting for More Evidence of Assange’s Political Prosecution (Lauria/Elmaazi)

 

 

 

 

CCR

 

 

Vessel
https://twitter.com/i/status/1849277732653355421

Trump ad
https://twitter.com/i/status/1849117459585925514

RFK

Kirk

ID

Baris

Slain soldier

Calley Means

10 days

Jack Smith

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Almost everyone expects a civil war to break out over the 2024 election. Trump was commenting on that possible scenario..”

• Harris Claims Trump Is Literally Hitler As Dems Enter Election Panic Mode (ZH)

No president should be trusted to operate outside the bounds of the US Constitution, this is a lesson that has been repeated on multiple occasions throughout American history. Each president should be held accountable for direct violations of their oath of office and each president should be scrutinized by the American public. With that ideal in mind, it’s interesting that the establishment has devoted so much time and energy to pursuing only one president in recent memory for supposed constitutional violations, and that man is Donald Trump. The numerous trespasses perpetrated by the Clintons, the Bush family, Barack Obama, and the Biden/Harris team have gone completely ignored. Why is it that they get a pass while Trump is placed under an electron microscope? Keep in mind, only a couple years ago the American public was embroiled in a life-or-death battle to stop their constitutional rights from being erased forever by the Biden Administration and their globalist handlers.

Biden’s vaccine passport efforts were particularly troubling; if they had been successful the Bill of Rights would be effectively dead and the federal government would have total control over every detail of civilian life. Good luck keeping a job, going to public places, keeping your kids and staying out of a covid camp should you refuse to take the latest mRNA booster shot. That’s the future Americans were facing under Biden/Harris and the Democrats. Covid hysteria and the government response is exactly what fascism looks like, and a large number of Democrats cheered for these policies. This is why the accusations by the political left calling Donal Trump “literal Hitler” ring rather hollow. They’ve been acting like authoritarians for the past four years they’ve been in power and the hypocrisy is steaming.

Kamala Harris recently held a press briefing to make a statement comparing Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler, an action which smacks of panic in the midst of polling numbers which increasingly show Trump winning by a landslide in November. In only two weeks, the Democrats face a conservative red wave the likes of which hasn’t been seen in decades. It’s obvious they’ve run out of ideas on how to counter this outcome. Harris’ accusation that Trump “wants generals like Hitler had” is based on a hearsay claim from Gen. John Kelly. This is the same man that Trump fired while in office for incompetence. The same man that claimed in 2023 that Trump called military casualties “suckers” and “losers”. There is no proof to verify any of Kelly’s assertions.

[..] It is true, though, that Trump suggested using the National Guard to stop leftist riots. Trump noted in an interview with Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo in an interview on “Sunday Morning Futures” that: “I think the bigger problem are the people from within. We have some very bad people. We have some sick people. Radical left lunatics…” “I think it should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military, because they can’t let that happen…”

The corporate media has latched onto this narrative, suggesting that this is a precursor to a fascist future. But if one remembers back to the days of the BLM riots and burning cities, the idea of National Guard intervention makes perfect sense. Military intervention is another matter and it’s fair to debate such a premise. However, let’s not forget that there have been at least two separate and nearly successful assassination attempts against Trump by leftists (both donators to ActBlue). It’s not crazy to suggest that extreme violence on the part of the political left is possible in the event of a Trump win. They’ve proven capable of it on numerous occasions. Almost everyone expects a civil war to break out over the 2024 election. Trump was commenting on that possible scenario.

It’s also unlikely that Americans today are as willing to tolerate mass political violence from leftists the way they did four years ago. Trump addressing the issue bluntly is not an endorsement of Hitler or fascism, its a recognition of the instability of our times. The political left is well aware that they are likely to lose in November; they might be giving their devout followers the green light to become violent post-election using the Hitler narrative as a rationale. If Trump is “literally Hitler” then all violence is justified, is it not?

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“..Trump would have seized the military to install himself as Emperor God during his first term, but luckily he got distracted by making red hats.”

“Babylon Bee CEO Seth Dillon Explains the Challenges of Satire in Today’s Climate — ‘Imagine if Your Job is to Write Jokes That Are Funnier Than a Kamala Harris Speech'”.

• Dems: Trump Was Going To Be Hitler During His First Term, But He Forgot (BBee)

Democrats have warned that if elected a second time, Donald Trump will be an evil dictator just like Adolf Hitler. When asked why Trump didn’t become Hitler during his first term, Democrats explained that he simply forgot. “Trump meant to be Hitler, but he forgot,” explained Vice President Harris in a press conference at the White House. “Being Hitler just totally slipped his mind. Make no mistake, if Trump is elected again, he absolutely plans to turn into Hitler and probably will write himself a reminder this time.” According to retired General John Kelly, former President Trump often talked about how he kept meaning to find time to be Hitler, but he kept getting distracted by other things.

“On several occasions, Trump told me word for word, ‘This is it. This is the week I’m going to go be Hitler.’ But then, Trump would get started doing something like handing out candy to Minions and he would completely forget,” explained Kelly. “This time he has written himself lots of notes telling himself to not forget to turn into literal Hitler. It’s terrifying.” At publishing time, Democrats had warned that Trump would have seized the military to install himself as Emperor God during his first term, but luckily he got distracted by making red hats.

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“This is the type of disgusting rhetoric that led to two assassination attempts against President Trump..”

• Trump Responds To Harris Over Hitler Comment (RT)

The increasingly over-the-top rhetoric of US Vice President Kamala Harris proves she is losing and is unfit for the White House, Republican candidate Donald Trump has said. On Wednesday, Harris attacked Trump as a fascist, would-be dictator and admirer of Adolf Hitler, citing reports from Democrat-party linked media based on claims by his former chief of staff. The Atlantic magazine – owned by Democrat mega-donor Lauren Powell Jobs – published a story by Jeffrey Goldberg suggesting that Trump had expressed admiration for Hitler and his generals during his 2017-2021 term in the White House. Goldberg cited retired US Marine General John Kelly, who served as Trump’s second chief of staff, dredging up claims by two New York Times journalists from their 2022 book. Trump’s team have denied the allegations outright.

“Comrade Kamala Harris sees that she is losing, and losing badly, especially after stealing the Race from Crooked Joe Biden, so now she is increasingly raising her rhetoric, going so far as to call me Adolf Hitler, and anything else that comes to her warped mind,” Trump said on X on Thursday. “She is a Threat to Democracy, and not fit to be President of the United States — And her Polling so indicates!” he added. With less than two weeks to go before the November 5 election, both Harris and her running mate Tim Walz and Democrats in down-ballot races have seen their polling lead evaporate, while Trump and the Republicans have picked up steam. Harris then quoted Goldberg’s report to claim that Trump’s alleged admiration for Hitler was “deeply troubling and incredibly dangerous” and “a window into who Donald Trump really is.” Harris also accused her rival of having “vowed to be a dictator on day one and vowed to use the military as his personal militia to carry out his personal and political vendettas.”

Earlier this week, the Atlantic published another article comparing Trump to Hitler – as well as to Benito Mussolini and Joseph Stalin – written by Anne Applebaum, the wife of Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski. The Trump campaign dismissed Applebaum’s piece as “fake news by a third-rate media outlet.” They argued that Kelly “beclowned himself with these debunked stories he has fabricated” and accused Harris of spreading “outright lies and falsehoods” by treating Goldberg’s allegations as legitimate. “This is the type of disgusting rhetoric that led to two assassination attempts against President Trump,” the campaign wrote. Trump narrowly escaped death at a July 13 rally in Pennsylvania. Another would-be assassin, a pro-Ukrainian activist, was caught last month by the Secret Service lurking at Trump’s golf course in Florida.

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“..this would require federal judges to sign off on the rounding up of MSNBC personalities, all gay people, all reporters, and, of course, Whoopi Goldberg.”

• The Press and Pundits Face Devastating Polls on Threat to Democracy (Turley)

“Democracy dies in darkness” is the Washington Post’s slogan, but can it handle the light? The Post has been doggedly portraying the election between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris as a choice between tyranny (Trump) and democracy (Harris). Yet when it commissioned a poll on threats to democracy shortly before the election, it did not quite work out. Voters in swing states believe that Trump is more likely to protect democracy than Kamala Harris, who is running on a “save democracy” platform. The poll sampled 5,016 registered voters in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. When asked whether Trump or Harris “would do a better job” of “defending against threats to democracy,” 43% picked Trump while 40% picked Harris. Notably, this was the same result when President Biden was the nominee.

While over half said that threats to democracy were important to them, the voters trusted Trump (44%) more than Biden (33%) in protecting democracy. Even with the slight improvement for Harris, the result was crushing for not just many in the Harris campaign but the press and pundits who have been unrelenting in announcing the end of democracy if Harris is not elected. Former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) has declared with authority that either you vote for Harris, or this “may well be the last real vote you ever get to cast.” I have long criticized the apocalyptic, democracy-ending predictions of Biden, Harris and others as ignoring the safeguards in our system against authoritarian power. Nevertheless, Harris supporters have ratcheted up the rhetoric to a level of pure hysteria. Recently, Michael Cohen, a convicted felon and Trump’s disbarred former lawyer, told MSNBC that if Trump wins the election, he will “get rid of the judiciary and get rid of the Congress.”

Recently, MSNBC host Al Sharpton and regular Donny Deutsch warned viewers that they will likely be added to an enemies “list” for some type of roundup after a Trump election. MSNBC host Rachel Maddow also joined in the theme of a final stand before the gulag: “For that matter, what convinces you that these massive camps he’s planning are only for migrants? So, yes, I’m worried about me — but only as much as I’m worried about all of us.” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) was quick to add her own name to a list that seems to be constantly updated by the media. She told podcast host Kara Swisher, “I mean, it sounds nuts, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this guy threw me in jail.” On ABC’s “The View,” the hosts are becoming indistinguishable from tinfoil-hatted subway prophets. Whoopi Goldberg even explained how Trump is already committed to being a dictator who will “put you people away … take all the journalists … take all the gay folks … move you all around and disappear you.”

Of course, assuming that Cohen is wrong that there will be no courts after a Trump victory, this would require federal judges to sign off on the rounding up of MSNBC personalities, all gay people, all reporters, and, of course, Whoopi Goldberg. All that is required is for over two centuries of constitutional order to fail suddenly, and for virtually every constitutional actor in our system to suddenly embrace tyranny. Those pushing this hysteria often curiously cite the January 6 riot as proof that the end is near. Yet that horrible day was the vindication, not the expiration, of our constitutional system. The system worked. The riot was put down. Congress, including Republicans, reassembled and certified Biden as the next president.

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“Voters asked direct question. Harris gave circular answers.”

• Word Salad City (ZH)

Kamala Harris’ completed another descending spin around her doom loop on Wednesday night: Lagging Trump in battleground states and therefore under pressure to increase her interactions with voters, she participated in a prime-time town hall that only further exposed her as one of the most superficial politicians of our time…with more poll damage sure to follow. The town hall was hosted by CNN and took place in Delaware County. Along with Chester, Bucks and Montgomery, it’s one of four Philadelphia “collar counties” that have traditionally played an outsize role in determining who wins Pennsylvania’s electoral votes. . You know things went bad when even the New York Times raked Harris over the coals for being evasive, saying: “Voters asked direct question. Harris gave circular answers.”

After the event, CNN’s Dana Bash said, “What I’m hearing from people who I’ve been talking to … if her goal was to close the deal, they’re not sure she did that.” Seasoned Democratic operative David Alexrod called out Harris’ signature flaw: “The things that would concern me is when she doesn’t want to answer a question, her habit is to kind of go to Word Salad City.” Harris’ worst sequence of the night came when host Anderson Cooper called out her flip-floppy hypocrisy on the issue of border security. Noting that Harris now supports a bill that would allocate $650 million toward a border wall, Cooper said, “Under Donald Trump, you criticized the wall more than 50 times. You called it stupid, useless and a ‘medieval vanity project.’ Is a border wall stupid?”

By this point, even Cooper had to wonder why he was even bothering to ask questions, given Harris’ refusal to answer them in any kind of straightforward way:

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“..only two criteria matter: Which candidate’s past record and current agenda best appeal to voters? And which candidate seems the most authentic and genuine?”

• Kamala’s Inane Talking Points (Victor Davis Hanson)

As Vice President Kamala Harris slips in the polls, the Democratic National Committee/Harris Campaign/mainstream media fusion talking points become even more absurd. Claiming that J.D. Vance and Donald Trump were “weird” did not work—especially given the genuinely odd behavior of vice presidential candidate Tim Walz and would-be First Gentleman Doug Emhoff. Nor was the next Harris meme convincing that the frenetic and non-stop Trump was somehow “exhausted,” “senile,” and “confused.” Voters know the workdays of the younger Harris are usually far shorter—or sometimes not workdays at all. But Harris also falsely claimed the physically and mentally challenged Biden was, in her words, “absolutely authoritative” and “very bold and vibrant.” Now Harris asserts that Trump is a “fascist,” a “dictator,” and “unfit” for office. But this new talking point will also not stop the Harris campaign’s hemorrhaging—and for a variety of reasons.

First, voters see the election as a conflict of two absolutely antithetical visions. On the one hand, is the prior Trump 2017-20 concrete record: border security, no major wars abroad, calm in the Middle East, a deterred Russia, Iran, and China, low inflation, low interest rates, lower crime, lower taxes, strong deterrent military—and opposition to mandatory electric vehicle mandates, biological males competing in women’s sports, and the woke/DEI agenda. On the other hand, is the Biden-Harris 2021-2024 record: the unchecked entry of 12-20 million illegal aliens and a destroyed border. People still struggle under Biden-Harris’s earlier hyperinflation and high interest rates. The horrific regional wars in Ukraine and the Middle East continue. Biden-Harris embraces the unpopular DEI/Woke agenda. Harris herself knows that the Biden-Harris years were a failure. That is why she has shed almost all of their hard left-wing agendas—policies she has embraced for much of her adult life.

So suddenly, in the last 90 or so days, Harris has completely flipped and flopped. Now she is for more of, not defunding, the police. She pivots for a secure border, not 20 million illegal aliens pouring across it. Harris brags about fossil fuel energy, not banning fracking, and for increasing, not cutting, defense. In fact, several endangered incumbent Democrat senators in swing states are claiming more allegiance to Trump’s issues than identifying with Harris and her unpopular record as vice president. Voters likely conclude that if Trump doubles down on his record, while even Harris and many senators temporarily piggyback on it, then it must be more effective and popular than Harris’s own. Second, Harris now claims Trump is a fascist and insurrectionist. But mouthing ad nausaem “January 6th” no longer persuades voters that Trump is a danger to anyone.

They recall that Harris bragged of the far more violent demonstrations of 2020—35 killed, $2 billion in damage, 1,500 law enforcement officers injured, 14,000 arrested—that the unrest would not and “should not” stop, while drumming up support to bail out jailed violent protestors. Nor does the slur that Trump is a fascist resonate. The Obama and Biden-Harris administrations weaponized the CIA and FBI to interfere in the 2016 and 2020 elections by peddling the fake Steele dossier and suppressing all the embarrassing news about Hunter Biden’s incriminating laptop. Trump certainly did not coordinate, as Biden did, with local, state, and federal prosecutors to wage lawfare prosecutions to destroy his political opponents. He did not use the FBI to partner with social media to suppress the news. Neither Trump nor his supporters tried to remove Biden from state ballots.

The Republican House majority did not impeach Biden twice despite the Biden family’s corruption and Joe Biden’s unlawful, decades-long removal of classified papers to several insecure private residences. Trump and the Republicans never coercively removed the party’s primary-winning nominee. They did not nullify the will of 14 million primary voters. And in backroom fashion, they did not anoint a candidate who had never entered a single primary in her life. Nor did Trump support packing the Supreme Court. He does not seek unconstitutional means of destroying the Electoral College. He is not demanding an end to the Senate filibuster or the creation of two new states to obtain four partisan senate seats. Third, as for Trump being “unfit” and lacking “decorum,” it depends on what were the Biden-Harris standards?

Having a trans activist reveal his breasts on camera at a White House “pride party?” Biden’s reportedly calling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “a f—ing idiot” and “son of a b—ch?” Bragging about locking Trump up, while waging lawfare against him? Unleashing son Hunter Biden with impunity to shake down foreign governments? The election will not be decided on these empty talking points or fake media-generated narratives. Instead, only two criteria matter: Which candidate’s past record and current agenda best appeal to voters? And which candidate seems the most authentic and genuine?

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“Gates enjoyed a profits bonanza off mRNA coronavirus vaccines mandated by the Biden administration…”

• Why is Bill Gates Backing Kamala Harris Using Shady Super PAC? (Sp.)

Tech billionaire, philanthropist and WEF cheerleader Bill Gates has given Kamala Harris’s campaign a $50 mln boost using dark money super PAC Future Forward. The donation was intended to remain secret, but was uncovered by NYT this week. Set up in 2018 by former Obama campaign staffers and coming out of left field in the final weeks of the 2020 race to fund a massive pro-Biden media blitz, Future Forward is a super political action committee funded mostly by Big Tech and venture capital firms, including Meta*, Google, disgraced crypto financier Sam Bankman-Fried, Bain Capital and Bridgewater Associates. The super PAC has raised a whopping $700 mln for the 2024 election cycle, rolling out $75 mln in pro-Harris ads last week. 2024 is at least the second election cycle where Gates has used a dark money vehicle to support the Democratic Party’s candidate.

In 2020, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation contributed nearly $70 mln to the New Venture Fund, a nonprofit belonging to DC consultancy Arabella Advisors, which bankrolls the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a goliath of undisclosed donations for Democratic politicians and liberal causes which raised nearly $390 mln four years ago. Publicly, Gates and his now former wife also gave $500,000 to Biden’s inaugural committee. Mr. Gates has been an active supporter of Democratic candidates since at least 2008, contributing financially to and praising the campaigns of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Gates’ ties to the Clintons are deeply rooted, with the billionaire becoming a top donor to the Clinton Foundation, and forging partnerships with the organization for global projects since at least 2013. In a telling interview in 2016 in which he explained his preference for Clinton, Gates said “there have been questions about vaccines in general where some of the candidates have shown that they’re not as up to date about vaccines in general, and that’s got to be a concern.”

“Science in general, whether it’s GMOs or vaccines, there’s a lot of people out there who don’t give science the benefit of the doubt. In terms of experience, Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton have more experience in global health,” Gates said at the time. With Harris’ presidential bid expected to broadly continue the Biden/Clinton line on foreign and domestic policy, it makes sense for Gates to throw his influence behind the VP, given the perceived threat of the Trump brand of red-pill MAGA Republicans and their anti-vax, anti-tech, and anti-interventionist leanings. “This election is different, with unprecedented significance for Americans and the most vulnerable people around the world,” Gates said this week after info about his $50 mln donation leaked out. “I think it’s great to have somebody who’s younger, who can think about things like AI and how we shape that in the right way, and I certainly offer up my opinions to the politicians who are interested,” Gates said this summer after Biden dropped out and named Harris his successor.

The Gates Foundation’s fortunes got a big boost under Biden, with its endowment growing from $69 bln in 2020 to $75.2 bln in 2023. Gates enjoyed a profits bonanza off mRNA coronavirus vaccines mandated by the Biden administration. In 2022, he sold off shares of BioNTech stocks he bought in 2019 as sales slowed. His foundation has also owned shares in Pfizer, CureVac and Vir Biotech going back to well before the pandemic. The billionaire’s foundation supports the Global Virome Project – an ambitious initiative created in 2018 to predict pathogens that could trigger lethal pandemics, but accused of weaponizing viruses from a network of 150 biolabs worldwide. Gates has also backed a broad array of World Economic Forum-affiliated initiatives, including projects to reduce emissions and create synthetic meat and dairy. In 2022, The Seattle Times revealed Gates’ secret lobbying to save Biden’s signature $2+ trln Build Back Better social and climate spending package.

Gates has also been a top backer of the Biden administration’s battle against media and online ‘misinformation’, with an explosive MintPress investigation from 2021 revealing that his foundation had bankrolled some $319 mln in media, including CNN, the BBC, Le Monde, the Financial Times, Der Spiegel and others to ensure favorable coverage of his agenda and that of his allies.

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“Is this just? There is no justice here,” Putin said. “We want to change this. And we will.”

• ‘No Justice In The West’ – Putin (RT)

Moscow has had enough of the West’s impunity and hypocrisy and intends to ensure that there is justice in the world again, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said. Putin spoke to journalists, including many from Western outlets, at the end of the BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia on Thursday. “Is it just to lie to our faces that NATO will not expand, and then [expand] it?” Putin asked BBC’s Steve Rosenberg, in response to his inquiry. “Is it fair to carry out a coup d’etat, spitting on all principles of law, and funding a coup in Ukraine?” he added, referring to the 2014 Maidan ‘revolution’ backed by Washington.

“Is this just? There is no justice here,” Putin said. “We want to change this. And we will.” The Russian president also dismissed as “nonsense” the claims that Moscow was somehow behind “mayhem” on British streets. Whatever may be happening in the UK is the result of London’s own policies, Putin said. The head of the British Security Service (MI5), Ken McCallum, claimed earlier this month that the UK support for Ukraine has made London a target of Russian propaganda and subterfuge, seeking more power and government funding to deal with the alleged threat.

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“..The US and its allies have blocked an estimated $300 billion in assets belonging to the Russian central bank..”

“..total foreign direct investments in the Russian economy by the EU, G7, Australia, and Switzerland amounted to $288 billion as of the end of 2022..”

It all adds up to zero AND you’re no longer the reserve currency. Well done.

• Russia To Seize Income From Frozen Western Assets – Finance Minister (RT)

Russia will respond in kind to the West’s use of the income generated by its frozen central-bank reserves, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov has said. The US and its allies have blocked an estimated $300 billion in assets belonging to the Russian central bank since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in February 2022. The bulk of the funds, around €197 billion ($213 billion), are being held at the Brussels-based clearinghouse Euroclear. On Wednesday, Washington announced a decision to use the proceeds from the frozen assets to repay a multibillion-dollar loan to Kiev. “If Western countries have begun utilizing the income from the frozen Russian reserves, we will do exactly the same,” Siluanov told reporters on Thursday. “We have frozen money from ‘unfriendly’ companies and organizations. We keep this money in our accounts in the same way and will use the income from these assets similarly,” he elaborated.

The income from these funds will be allocated to “the needs of the economy, the needs of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation,” the minister added, noting that the corresponding decisions have already been made. The US said on Wednesday that it will provide Kiev with a $20 billion loan as part of a broader $50 billion G7 package. The use of windfall profits from the blocked Russian assets will provide Ukraine assistance “without burdening taxpayers,” US President Joe Biden stated. A day earlier, the European Parliament backed allocating a loan of up to €35 billion ($38 billion) for Kiev using the immobilized Russian assets as collateral for the repayments. According to Euroclear, the frozen funds had generated €3.4 billion ($3.6 billion) in interest as of mid-July.

Russia has repeatedly warned that seizing its assets would amount to “theft” and would violate international law and undermine reserve currencies, the global financial system, and the world economy. The International Monetary Fund has also been raising concerns that such actions could undermine trust in the Western financial system. Siluanov earlier warned that global players are closely following the story involving the Russian assets and are drawing their own conclusions. While the finance minister did not elaborate on the amount of Western assets currently held in Russia, previous calculations by RIA Novosti put the figure at roughly equal the size of the Russian funds frozen abroad. The news agency reported that total foreign direct investments in the Russian economy by the EU, G7, Australia, and Switzerland amounted to $288 billion as of the end of 2022.

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“Russia does not seek to drop the dollar or defeat it, but instead is being “prevented from working with it..”

• US Making ‘Big Mistake’ By Weaponizing Dollar – Putin (RT)

Weaponizing the US dollar is a big mistake, Russian President Vladimir Putin told a session at the BRICS Summit in Kazan on Wednesday. He made the remark following a harsh assessment on the currency’s use as a political tool by the New Development Bank’s (NDB) president, Dilma Rousseff. According to Rousseff, the global geopolitics is being adversely affected by the use of the US dollar “as a weapon to change the living conditions of the population.” The vast wave of sanctions against Russia have forced many Western companies from various industrial sectors including food, clothing, and car manufacturing to leave the country, and have severely restricted people’s ability to travel and make international bank transfers, she noted. Putin agreed with Rousseff’s assessment.

”Yes, indeed, we can see that this is true. In fact, I think it is a big mistake by those who do this. The dollar remains the most important instrument of world finance and using it as a means of achieving political goals undermines confidence in this currency and reduces its capabilities,” the Russian president said. Russia does not seek to drop the dollar or defeat it, but instead is being “prevented from working with it,” Putin added. “Then we are forced to look for other alternatives, which is what is happening.” Many Russian financial institutions were cut off from the Western financial system in 2022 in response to Russia’s military operation in Ukraine. As a result, Moscow has accelerated trade with international partners using their national currencies. The trend has been increasingly supported by BRICS members, which have shifted from using the dollar and euro for trade settlements.

In August, Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin said that over 95% of mutual settlements between Russia and its biggest trading partner, China, are carried out using the ruble or yuan. Putin previously stated that the use of local currencies instead of the dollar or euro “helps to keep economic development free from politics as far as possible in the context of today’s world.”

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“.. they don’t take into account the unity and the strength of spirit of Russians forged over the centuries..”

• West’s Belief It Can Defeat Russia ‘A Mere Illusion’ – Putin (RT)

The West is using Ukraine to threaten Russia’s security while believing in the “illusion” that it can inflict a strategic defeat on Moscow, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said. Speaking at the extended Outreach/BRICS Plus format session in Kazan on Thursday, Putin stated that the emergence of a “more just world order” is being hampered by “forces accustomed to thinking and acting in the logic of domination over everything and everyone.” According to Putin, the West’s “unlawful unilateral sanctions” and interference in the affairs of other countries under the pretense of “concern for democracy and human rights” are actively undermining regional and global strategic stability, as well as encouraging “interstate strife.”

Putin pointed to Ukraine as an example, stating that it is being used to “create critical threats to Russia’s security” while Moscow’s vital interests, as well as its “just concerns about the infringement on the rights of Russian-speaking people,” are being ignored. Kiev’s foreign backers “do not even hide any longer their goal of inflicting a strategic defeat on our country.” Putin said, adding that the West’s belief that it can achieve its goals is “a mere illusion.” “Only those who don’t know the history of Russia can believe in this, because they don’t take into account the unity and the strength of spirit of Russians forged over the centuries,” Putin stated.

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“..Kiev would become a part of the bloc later when certain conditions are met..”

• Seven NATO Members Against Ukraine Membership – Politico (RT)

A sizable group of NATO members led by the US and Germany are reluctant to extend an invitation to Ukraine anytime soon, Politico reported on Wednesday, citing sources. Last week, Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky presented his ‘victory plan’, which included a demand to be immediately invited into the US-led military bloc. However, the Politico article, citing four unnamed US and NATO officials, said that Berlin and Washington are “slow-walking” this request, adding that “key alliance members are worried about getting ensnared in a war with Russia.” US Ambassador to NATO Julianne Smith told Politico that the bloc “has not, to date, reached the point where it is prepared to offer membership or an invitation to Ukraine.”

Meanwhile, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz earlier said that it was his duty to prevent the Ukraine conflict from spiraling into a full-scale war between Russia and NATO, adding that Kiev would become a part of the bloc later when certain conditions are met. Hungary and Slovakia – which have been critical of the Western approach to the Ukraine conflict and have insisted on an immediate ceasefire – are two other holdouts. Politico described their leaders as following “a generally pro-Kremlin line.” Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban called Zelensky’s plan outright “terrifying,” while his Slovak counterpart Robert Fico warned that Ukraine’s accession to NATO could lead to World War III.

Furthermore, one NATO official told Politico that “countries like Belgium, Slovenia or Spain are hiding behind the US and Germany” when it comes to the issue of Ukraine’s membership, describing them as “reluctant.” Another source noted that while those nations support Kiev’s NATO aspirations “in the abstract,” they would voice their opposition when push comes to shove. Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that Kiev’s desire to join NATO – which Moscow has described as an existential threat and an “enemy” – was one of the key reasons for the current conflict in the first place. Officials in Moscow have also said that Ukraine’s membership in the bloc “in any territorial form is absolutely unacceptable to Russia and cannot be part of any peace plans or mediation initiatives.”

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“..turning America into a Sodom and Gomorrah Tower of Babel..”

• Is Western Civilizational Decline Too Advanced to Be Reversed? (PCR)

Trump says he intends to make America great again, and his supporters believe him. I also believe it is Trump’s intent. The question is if there is enough left of America to restore. Trump, if he is careful about his appointments, could make a good stab at restoration: Robert Kennedy as the head of the Food and Drug Administration. General Flynn as head of the CIA. Elon Musk as Secretary of State. John Whitehead of the Rutherford Institute as Attorney General. Michael Hudson as Secretary of the Treasury. Edward Snowden as Director of the National Security Agency. A number of the police state agencies, such as Homeland Security, could be abolished. So, yes, in theory, Trump could have a go at restoring America. But is Trump capable of even imagining these appointments, and if so could he get them confirmed by the US Senate? I have no confidence that Trump would acquire the human capital his administration would need to do the job he has assigned to himself.

Perhaps his advisors again are serving the establishment, not Trump, telling him that he needs to moderate his attack on the establishment in order to make himself more acceptable to the ruling elite and less of a target for the presstitute media. This is how potential leaders are brought to heel. Among the problems Trump would face is the erosion of the US Constitution with Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, the Wall Street Journal editor, law school deans, and the Woke Left calling for the Constitution’s overthrow because the First Amendment prevents the Ruling Elite from controlling the population by controlling the narrative. The United States is the Constitution. Overthrowing the Constitution is the same as overthrowing the United States. It is treason. Would Trump’s Justice Department arrest these people for treason? The First Amendment prohibits the government from prohibiting the freedom of speech and guarantees the freedom of assembly.

These Constitutional Rights were violated by the Democrats who turned free speech and assembly into an “insurrection.” Democrats, led by the Jew Biden appointed as Attorney General and by the FBI director appointed by Trump, ruled that attending a rally to support a president constituted “insurrection.” One thousand American patriots who attended the Trump Rally are wasting away in prison for no other reason than law was used against them as a weapon. The destruction of the rule of law is the Democrats and the American left-wing’s main achievement. In “free America” law is no longer a shield of the people. Law is a weapon in the hands of those in power to decimate the political opposition. President Trump’s two loyal appointees–General Flynn and Steve Bannon–were both sentenced to prison. Another problem Trump would face is that the liberal-left have turned education into indoctrination. Education is no longer the function of American schools and universities.

Students are brainwashed that Western Civilization has no achievements except racism and exploitation of people of color, that whites are racists, that people can be born into the wrong bodies, that the Constitution is in the way of progress. The normalization of sexual perversity, the sexualization of young children, and open borders are turning America into a Sodom and Gomorrah Tower of Babel. This is the accomplishment of the Democrat Party and the liberal-left. So we have in America a system in which the rulers are aligned against America. America, with its Constitution, its separation of powers, its traditions, is in their way, as Hillary, John Kerry, the Wall Street Journal editor, CNN, and law school deans have made clear. One might think that Americans might notice that those who believe in America are being marginalized by those who believe in the Constitution’s overthrow.

There are some Americans who are beginning to realize that truth is being denied them, but are enough catching on in time to prevent the termination of their rights? When we witness the determined illegal persecution of truth-tellers such as Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, Reiner Fuellmich, and one thousand American patriots sent to prison by Democrats for protesting a stolen election, we find ourselves up against a government with a totalitarian agenda. The Republicans are doing nothing about this. What has the Republican Party done to ensure that the November election is not again stolen? In America today it is becoming a felony to even present evidence that an election ( “won” by Democrats ) was stolen. Some of the swing states in which elections are most often stolen by Democrats have not only legalized all of the theft mechanisms but also have made it a felony to challenge the vote count.

The question before us is what does an American election mean other than another stolen election? I agree with Elon Musk. If the Democrats are returned to power in 2024 there will never again be an honest American election. The odds are against the Democrats and the Ruling Elite permitting Trump to become President. If he prevails against the odds and regains the office, it is unlikely he will be staffed with sufficient determined and intelligent appointees to reverse American societal, economic, political, moral, and spiritual decline. Nevertheless, we must vote for Trump or never again will anyone challenge in our name the Ruling Elite’s control over our lives. Every future potential leader will know that Trump stood up to the elite but the people did not stand up for Trump, and they will dismiss the American people as a losing cause.

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“Ursula von der Leyen advocates “pre-bunking” in the public forum to “vaccinate” people against “disinformation.”

• EU President Likens Free Speech to Infectious Disease (Leake)

EU President Ursula von der Leyen just joined the ranks of former Senator John Kerry and other globalist ghouls in declaring war on free speech by perversely proclaiming that the EU citizenry needs to be “vaccinated against disinformation.” Like every censor in history, she characterizes her censorship program as a means of expunging erroneous information and ideas from public discourse. By using the word “disinformation,” she implies that she and her clique are already the sole possessors of the truth about everything, and that everyone who has and shares heterodox ideas is necessarily in error. Her entire premise is FALSE for the following reasons:

1). Knowledge about the world is constantly evolving through constant inquiry, discussion, and dissemination. Knowledge is NOT a static thing. This is why countries with stifling censorship regimes have experienced intellectual, scientific, and artistic stagnation. Their rulers try to freeze the human mind in its state at their moment in history.

2). NO state, university, or ecclesiastical committee has ever been in possession of the full truth of any matter. Official orthodoxies have always been challenged by heterodox thinkers. Indeed, virtually every major advance in human insight has been performed by heterodox thinkers.

3). As John Milton observed in his 1644 pamphlet, Areopagitica, contending with error is an intrinsic part of learning and discovery. We literally learn by making mistakes and correcting them. If free speech is suppressed for the objective of preventing the propagation of erroneous thought—or “vaccinating against it”—it will become extremely difficult if not impossible for people to learn and discover.

4). Without a single exception in history, the people who hold power always advocate the orthodoxy that sustains and extends their power and that of their friends and supporters.

Ursula von der Leyen is the quintessence of this principle. As president of the EU, she conducted secret negotiations with Pfizer CEO to purchase a 20 billion Euros of Pfizer’s fraudulent and dangerous vaccine so that it could be inflicted on all the citizens of the European Union. She is currently under criminal investigation for her conduct in this affair that has come to be known as Pfizergate. It takes a special kind of chutzpah for a powerful state official who is probably guilty of committing a major crime—a crime that has been systematically and ruthlessly concealed—to lecture the public about the need for censorship. The time has come for the citizens of Europe to rid themselves of Ursula von der Leyen and her clique of corrupt tyrants. To be sure, there is increasing evidence that the Biden Administration has been exerting pressure on Germany—which remains an American vassal state—and the EU to step up its censorship regime. I will cover this strange development in a subsequent post.

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“..faulty landing gear and vibrating fuel tubes, to fragile electro-optical targeting equipment, canopy delamination issues and weather sensitivity, engine heat issues adding to wear and tear, cabin over-pressurization, night vision problems, corrosion, radar reset issues, ejection seats which can snap pilots’ necks, and inability to fly in lightning..”

• F-35’s Ascent and Nosedive: Costliest Weapon in History Hits Fresh Turbulence (Sp.)

Conceived as the Pentagon’s next-gen do-it-all strike jet for the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps, the F-35 has proved a budgetary nightmare, set to consume more resources than the GDP of a major G20 economy over its lifetime. The Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II fifth-gen supersonic stealth strike fighter just can’t seem to catch a break, with a new report released Monday by the Government Accountability Office finding the jet woefully below mission-ready status for six straight years – i.e. every year that the Congressional watchdog has conducted its reviews. The GAO blamed the readiness shortfall on “challenges with depot and organizational maintenance,” and over-reliance on contractors who essentially hold the Pentagon hostage with astronomical sustainment costs (which jumped from $1.1 trillion in FY2018 to $1.58 trillion in FY2023).

The Navy and Air Force are set to take control of sustainment to get a grip on the situation, but not until FY2027. The GAO estimates that only about 55% of the F-35’s three variants are mission ready at any given time, with mission readiness requiring the ability to “fly and perform at least one mission.” With a per unit cost of nearly $100 mln and a projected lifetime cost of over $2 trln, the F-35 program is by far the most expensive military project in history.
Lockheed proceeded with the F-35’s development by taking cues from the Yak-43/141 VTOL jet – a Soviet carrier strike aircraft project scrapped in 1991. The X-35 first flew in 2000, and the F-35A in 2006. But the F-35’s makers have proven unable to work out all the kinks in the plane, with the GAO issuing report after report citing hundreds of flaws, including mission critical defects which could injure or kill pilots, or otherwise jeopardize the aircraft’s safety.

These problems range from faulty landing gear and vibrating fuel tubes, to fragile electro-optical targeting equipment, canopy delamination issues and weather sensitivity, engine heat issues adding to wear and tear, cabin over-pressurization, night vision problems, corrosion, radar reset issues, ejection seats which can snap pilots’ necks, and inability to fly in lightning. To add insult to injury, all three of America’s major potential adversaries have reportedly found the means to nullify the F-35’s stealth advantage, with Russia, China and Iran announcing sophisticated radar technologies not only able to detect the F-35 at long ranges – but even identify the distinct radar signature of individual F-35 planes.

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” The strike has halted production of the best-selling 737 MAX and 767 and 777 wide-body models.”

Which were full of flaws.

• Boeing Workers Reject Wage Deal To End Strike (RT)

Boeing workers have rejected the US aerospace giant’s latest contract offer, extending a nearly six-week strike which has crippled the already struggling planemaker. Some 64% of workers voted to reject the new contract, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM), the union representing 33,000 Boeing staff in Washington, Oregon and California, said on X (formerly Twitter) on Wednesday. “We remain on strike,” IAM District 751 President Jon Holden said after the votes were counted. “Our members deserve more and have spoken loudly.” The latest deal included a 35% wage increase over the four-year contract and a restoration of incentive bonuses, but did not reinstate the pension plan sought by many employees.

Workers with the IAM have been striking since September, when they overwhelmingly rejected Boeing’s previous offer of a 25% cumulative pay raise. Employees had initially sought a 40% pay increase, arguing that their wages had lagged behind inflation for years while the company spent millions of dollars on record executive bonuses. “After 10 years of sacrifices, we still have ground to make up, and we’re hopeful to do so by resuming negotiations promptly,” leaders of the union said in a statement. “This is workplace democracy and also clear evidence that there are consequences when a company mistreats its workers year after year.” The strike has halted production of the best-selling 737 MAX and 767 and 777 wide-body models.

Earlier this month Boeing also announced plans to cut 17,000 jobs over the coming months, representing nearly 10% of its workforce, as the aerospace giant’s losses continue to mount. Boeing reported a $6.2 billion third quarter loss on Wednesday, largely due to costs associated with the strike. Days before the workers voted to extend the strike, Boeing announced that its 777X widebody aircraft will be postponed to 2026, nearly six years after the aircraft was due to reach customers. The embattled aviation giant has also been under increased scrutiny in recent years due to various flaws discovered in its aircraft, leading to safety concerns and investigations.

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“Don’t you dare get cold feet!!!”

• Fighting for More Evidence of Assange’s Political Prosecution (Lauria/Elmaazi)

A tribunal in Britain is set to decide whether to order the government’s Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) to prove it deleted emails that may have covered up more evidence of a politically motivated prosecution of Julian Assange. The three judges heard arguments on Sept. 24 in the nearly decade-long freedom of information saga regarding the emails that top British prosecutors say were deleted. They involved an exchange with Sweden during a Swedish prosecutor’s attempt, beginning in 2010, to extradite the WikiLeaks publisher from Britain. Assange was wanted in Sweden for questioning during a preliminary investigation into allegations of sexual assault, which was dropped three times, definitively in 2017. He was never charged. After losing his battle against extradition to Sweden at the U.K. Supreme Court, Assange took refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy in June 2012, fearing that Sweden would send him to the United States.

Assange spent seven years in the embassy protecting himself from arrest by British police until April 2019, when police dragged him from the diplomatic mission and threw him into London’s maximum security Belmarsh prison. It was only when the U.S. realized it would lose on appeal after a four-year extradition battle that the Department of Justice cut a plea deal with Assange who was released on June 24 and returned to his native Australia. Assange had been charged in the United States under the Espionage Act for possessing and publishing defense information, which revealed evidence of U.S. war crimes. Britain took an active role in Assange’s prosecution. Its Crown Prosecution Service sought to stop Sweden from going to the embassy to question him. Seeking to learn more about Britain’s role against Assange, Italian investigative journalist Stefania Maurizi first made a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request in 2015 for all emails between the British and Swedish governments concerning Assange.

Some of the emails she obtained showed political motivation on the part of the lead British prosecutor, Paul Close. One email Maurizi obtained from the Swedish Prosecution Authority (SPA) revealed that Close appeared to be pressuring Swedish prosecutors to continue seeking Assange’s extradition instead of dropping the case or questioning him at the Ecuadorian embassy, where Assange had been granted asylum. “My earlier advice remains, that in my view it would not be prudent for the Swedish authorities to try to interview the defendant [Julian Assange] in the UK,” Close wrote to the SPA, in 2011, according to one of the emails obtained by Maurizi. “Don’t you dare get cold feet!!!,” he wrote to Marianne Ny, Sweden’s director of public prosecutions, in 2012. A year after that, Close wrote, “Please do not think this case is being dealt with as just another extradition.” After Maurizi noticed a sizeable gap in the emails released to her she filed another FIOA seeking to obtain the missing emails.

The CPS first claimed that it had destroyed the emails. It said that when Close retired, his account along with his emails, were automatically destroyed. But Maurizi did not buy it. She asked the court at the hearing last month to order the CPS to turn over “metadata” — data about data, such as file creation and modification dates, email sender and recipient addresses, timestamps, email routing information, keywords, and subject lines — proving the emails really were deleted and when. “We have NO certainty whatsoever” that the emails were destroyed, Maurizi wrote in a message to Consortium News. Maurizi is in court because she believes the allegedly deleted emails could provide additional evidence of a politically motivated prosecution of Assange. She also wants metadata on a CPS document that it says is from 2012 explaining the CPS’ email deletion policy, which was only sent to her in 2023.

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https://twitter.com/i/status/1849481946994295174

 

 

 

 

 

 

Urbanism

 

 

Starship
https://twitter.com/i/status/1849381012146442723

 

 

Collie

 

 

Wood
https://twitter.com/i/status/1849322564264382794

 

 

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Debt Rattle October 21 2024

Oct 212024
 
 October 21, 2024  Posted by at 8:27 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  62 Responses »


David Hockney Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures) 1972

 

• Market ‘Convinced’ Trump Will Win – Druckenmiller (RT)
• Trump Promises To Unleash ‘America’s New Golden Age’ (JTN)
• Trump Considers No Taxes For Police Officers, Firefighters And Military (ZH)
• Trump Claims He Threatened Putin With Strike On Moscow (RT)
• In Search of Accountability for Anti-Trump Hoaxes (TON)
• Americans Getting Wise To ‘Propaganda Machine’ – Musk (RT)
• The Atlantic Mocked For ‘Trump Is Hitler’ Hit-Piece (RT)
• Elon Musk Launches Million-Dollar-A-Day Giveaway For Petition Signers (ZH)
• Germany and UK To Sign ‘Historic’ Defense Pact – Sunday Times (RT)
• Germany’s Scholz Shoots Down Ukraine’s ‘Victory Plan’ (RT)
• Is Russia Finally Acknowledging Reality? (Paul Craig Roberts)
• Boeing Explores Asset Sales In Potential Shrinking Of Corporate Footprint (ZH)
• No, Trump Should Not Sue CBS (Turley)
• Gold, Kamala, Trump, Control, Cash, Murder, Water – Austin Fitts (USAW)
• ‘It’s Like We’re Watching Auschwitz on TikTok’ (Gabor Maté)
• Julian Would Not Have Survived Without Plea Deal – Assange’s Father (RT)
• Pentagon Says There is No Hard Evidence of Aliens Visiting Earth (Sp.)

 

 

 

 

O’Leary

Lawfare

Netscape
https://twitter.com/i/status/1847827491601482109

Pinion
https://twitter.com/i/status/1847670411019911179

Margin
https://twitter.com/i/status/1847806428687585451

RFK
https://twitter.com/i/status/1847416261312913877

Voting

Broadband
https://twitter.com/i/status/1847801842337796565

1M
https://twitter.com/i/status/1847858776520687678

 

 

 

 

Coming from a Soros man…

• Market ‘Convinced’ Trump Will Win – Druckenmiller (RT)

Markets have been pricing in a Donald Trump victory in the upcoming US presidential election, American billionaire investor Stanley Druckenmiller has said in an interview with Bloomberg Television. The founder of the Duquesne Family Office investment firm and hedge fund manager specified that the trend is clearly visible in bank stocks, crypto and even in the performance of the former president’s social media company Trump Media & Technology Group. “I would have to guess Trump is the favorite to win the election,” Druckenmiller told the news channel on Wednesday, emphasizing that the market has seemed “very convinced Trump is going to win” over the past 12 days.

Druckenmiller, who managed money for billionaire political activist and Democrat mega-donor George Soros for more than a decade, also commented on how a Trump victory would play out if the Republicans win Congress. According to him, it’s “extremely unlikely” that the Democrats will gain control of Congress, even if Kamala Harris makes it to the Oval Office. The investor, who funded the primary campaign of former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley against Trump earlier this year, also said that equities may be troubled for three to six months in the event of a so-called blue sweep, when the Democrats win the Presidency, the Senate and the House of representatives. Druckenmiller added that a red sweep scenario is “probably more likely than a Trump presidency with a blue Congress.”

“Personally, I think anybody that votes for Trump is probably not going to change their ballot for a Democrat in Congress,” he added. The money manager also expects the Fed to be far more hawkish than it would be under a Harris administration. He noted that the jumbo rate cut of 50 basis points in September was a mistake, adding that his investment firm shorted bonds, betting that the obligation price would fall, after the announcement. Druckenmiller stressed that the market needs to temper its expectations about the pace and extent of central-bank easing.

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“Your vote will decide whether we give up on America, or whether we save America..”

• Trump Promises To Unleash ‘America’s New Golden Age’ (JTN)

Rising in the polls, former President Donald Trump channeled some Ronald Reagan-like optimism while rallying voters in the battleground state of Pennsylvania, promising Saturday evening that if he is elected he would unleash “America’s New Golden Age.” “This election is a choice between whether we will have four more years of failure and disaster, or whether we will begin the four greatest years in the history of our country,” Trump told the crowd in Latrobe, Pa. “Your vote will decide whether we give up on America, or whether we save America,” he added. Trump rattled off the policy changes he would sweep into Washington, from tax cuts and regulatory reform to securing the border and shrinking government. “With your support, we will bring back our nation’s strength, dominance, prosperity, and pride,” he said. “This will be America’s New Golden Age. “One hundred years from now, the presidential election of 2024 will be looked upon as America’s greatest victory.”

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“..absent a Republican sweep most of Trump’s promises will end up as being just hot air..”

• Trump Considers No Taxes For Police Officers, Firefighters And Military (ZH)

The race to shock and awe with the greatest number of tax cuts ahead of the November 5 election is nearing its climax. Donald Trump said he’d consider exempting police officers, firefighters, active duty military and veterans from paying taxes, the Republican nominee’s latest campaign trail idea to deliver tax breaks to key groups of supporters. “It’s something I would think about,” Trump said in response to a question about excluding first responders and military members from tax bills on an online show Maintaining with Tyrus that aired Friday. “You’re like my tax person there, but yeah. I mean something has to be done,” he said. “It’s almost an incentive to where you can get people interested.” The idea to exempt members of the military and first responders from taxation is the latest in a long list of tax proposals Trump has talked about while campaigning against Kamala Harris.

He’s pledged to i) eliminate taxes on tipped wages, ii) taxes on overtime pay and iii) taxes on Social Security benefits. To be sure, Trump didn’t give any more details about the service member tax exclusion, and any such ideas would require congressional approval in order to become law, which is why absent a Republican sweep most of Trump’s promises will end up as being just hot air. The no-taxes-on-military-and-first-responders idea could be among the largest new tax cuts he’s discussed to date, exempting more than 20 million people from federal tax payments. According to Bloomberg, there are about 18 million living veterans in the US, roughly 1.3 million active duty troops, approximately 1 million police offers in the US and more than 300,000 professional firefighters, according to several estimates. The US does offer some broad tax exemption to military members, but that is largely limited to people who are serving in active combat zones.

Over the last several months, Trump has rolled out a steady drumbeat of politically beneficial tax cut plans focused on key election constituencies, as a way to appeal to voters in an extremely tight election — particularly, low-and-middle-income Americans frustrated by high prices. The Republican nominee has thrown out such a wide range of tax proposals that even his own advisers are unsure about which ones he intends to enact if elected. Now that it is clear that neither candidate gives a rat’s ass about the war-time US budget deficit which just hit a mindblowing 6% of GDP despite US GDP allegedly growing at a 3%+ rate…… Trump it taking his tax break promises to the limit while also campaigning on extending the tax cut first passed when he was president. Major portions of that law, including lower tax brackets for households and deductions for small businesses, are set to expire at the end of 2025.

Trump has also pledged to further lower the corporate rate to 15% from 21% and expand the state and local tax deduction, a write-off popular in New York and California where Republicans face close House elections to keep their majority in the chamber. Economists have warned that his policy portfolio may balloon the federal debt, adding as much as $15 trillion to the debt over the next decade, according to an estimate from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. Trump contends that economic growth and energy production would offset the loss in tax revenue.

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“You’re going to be hit so hard, and I’m going to take those f**king domes right off your head..”

• Trump Claims He Threatened Putin With Strike On Moscow (RT)

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has claimed that he threatened to strike Moscow if Russian President Vladimir Putin launched an attack on Ukraine. Asked in a wide-ranging interview with the Wall Street Journal on Friday whether he would use military force to respond to a potential blockade of Taiwan by Beijing, Trump said he would not have to, as his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, “respects me and he knows I’m f**king crazy.” Pivoting to Russia, Trump said the same is true of Putin, who he claimed to have an excellent relationship with. He added that at one point, he told him:

“Vladimir, if you go after Ukraine, I am going to hit you so hard, you’re not even going to believe it. I’m going to hit you right in the middle of fricking Moscow… We’re friends. I don’t want to do it, but I have no choice.” According to the former president, Putin reacted with disbelief, saying “no way.” “Way,” Trump responded. “You’re going to be hit so hard, and I’m going to take those f**king domes right off your head,” he reportedly said, apparently referring to the Russian leader’s Kremlin residence. Trump’s term in office expired in early 2021, more than a year before the start of Russia’s military operation in Ukraine.

Putin last spoke with Trump in 2020, according to public records. American journalist Bob Woodward, however, claimed that the two have had “maybe as many as seven” conversations since Trump left the White House. Both the Kremlin and the Trump campaign have denied the claim. The former US president has repeatedly said that the Russia-Ukraine conflict would not have happened had he been in office, and has vowed to end it within 24 hours if elected. While he provided few details on a potential peace plan, his running mate, J.D. Vance, said Trump could start talks with Russia, Ukraine, and European stakeholders to establish a demilitarized zone along the current front line, with Kiev agreeing to stay out of NATO.

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“A potential new Trump administration must act swiftly to hold accountable those who perpetrated anti-Trump scams.”

• In Search of Accountability for Anti-Trump Hoaxes (TON)

It may be premature to start contemplating the implications of a potential Trump victory on November 5. Unfortunately, for certain issues, it may already be too late. This is because time is of the essence when it comes to holding individuals accountable for the numerous frauds and acts of treachery that characterized much of President Trump’s first four years in office. More specifically, federal law has a five-year statute of limitations, preventing prosecution for actions committed more than five years ago. However, urgent accountability is needed to ensure that those who defrauded the American public in their pursuit of Trump do not escape punishment. Democrats and their allies are acutely aware of the five-year time limit.

This is evident in their swift action to prosecute Twitter user Douglas Mackey for creating a meme in 2016 that jokingly encouraged Hillary Clinton voters to text in their votes. As the statute of limitations on Mackey’s “crimes” was set to lapse in 2021, Democrats, aided by “Republican” appointee Seth DuCharme, were locked and loaded to file charges as soon as Biden assumed the presidency. Republicans would do well do follow this example, albeit for actual crimes. Accountability is needed in order to prevent renewed and repeated treachery. We have examined aspects of three separate scams that may still fall within the five-year statute of limitations period by the time Trump assumes office on January 20, 2025, should he win the election.

Russiagate
The first area we examined is Russiagate, which, given that it is now almost nine years old, presents unique challenges in terms of holding anyone accountable. Russiagate originated as a Clinton campaign operation in early 2016. Of course, a dirty tricks campaign is not a crime in itself. Even lying to the media, as the Clinton campaign did repeatedly in its attempts to smear Trump as a Russian agent, is not a crime. Instead, our focus is on government actors. The first documented instance of government actors co-opting the Russiagate narrative occurred when the FBI received the fraudulent Steele dossier on July 5, 2016. This was soon followed by various other actions, such as opening the sham Crossfire Hurricane investigation and spying on several members of the Trump campaign team. However, all these actions are now over eight years old and fall outside the statute of limitations. Unfortunately, even the most egregious aspect of the Russiagate hoax—the fraudulent Intelligence Community Assessment that President Obama used to undermine the incoming Trump administration—also falls outside the statute of limitations. Subsequent actions involving corrupt FBI officials, such as Peter Strzok, James Comey, and Andrew McCabe, likewise fall outside the statute of limitations. In fact, all these individuals were fired more than five years ago.[..]

Ukraine Impeachment Hoax
It is not coincidental that Trump’s first impeachment, on charges of allegedly failing to send weapons to Ukraine, began one day after Robert Mueller testified before Congress that there was no Russian collusion. One hoax simply replaced another. On July 25, 2019, Trump had his infamous conversation with Ukraine’s President, Volodymyr Zelensky. The overarching premise of the impeachment scheme was to accuse Trump of withholding military aid to Ukraine, despite the fact that he had not done so. This allegation stemmed from a distorted interpretation of Trump’s phone call with Zelensky. It was claimed that Trump had offered a quid pro quo, suggesting that Zelensky investigate alleged corruption involving the Biden family in exchange for military assistance. However, when the actual transcript of the phone call was released in September 2019, it became clear that this characterization was false. Nevertheless, by that time, the impeachment narrative against Trump was already in full swing, and neither the Democrats nor the media were deterred by the truth.

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“..in the US people are starting to realize that the legacy media is just a propaganda machine..”

• Americans Getting Wise To ‘Propaganda Machine’ – Musk (RT)

A victory for Democratic nominee Kamala Harris could usher in a crackdown on freedom of speech in the US, tech billionaire Elon Musk has warned. Speaking at a rally for Republican candidate Donald Trump in Pennsylvania on Saturday, the Tesla and X CEO was asked what kind of administration he would expect to see from Harris if she wins the November election. “We’ll see a lot of censorship under a sort of Kamala regime. Kamala is really just a puppet, frankly. If the teleprompter breaks she doesn’t know what to say,” Musk said, adding that he prefers to think of the administration as a “big government machine” that puts on a certain face to appeal to voters. In contrast, the tycoon said he finds claims that Trump is “a danger to democracy” to be “bizarre and hypocritical,” given that US President Joe Biden was “removed” from the race in an “incredibly undemocratic” fashion.

“There’s clearly a strong a strong push for censorship under the guise of fighting disinformation. But disinformation is really a propaganda word. Who’s going to decide what disinformation is? The government? That’s crazy,” Musk stated. However, the billionaire said he remains optimistic about a shift in the national mindset – as more Americans refuse to believe “everything the media tells you.” “Actually, in the US people are starting to realize that the legacy media is just a propaganda machine,” he argued, while the European audience “still thinks the news is real.” In June 2022, Harris spearheaded the creation of the White House Task Force to Address Online Harassment and Abuse, with a focus on protecting women and the LGBTQ community.

In 2019, the US vice president labeled social media platforms as purveyors of “hate” and “misinformation” and said she wanted to hold them accountable for the content they spread. Musk has repeatedly criticized the US government for overreach and attempts to introduce what he sees as excessive content moderation. While the mogul previously positioned himself as politically neutral, he publicly endorsed Donald Trump after the former president survived an assassination attempt in July, donating tens of millions of dollars to his campaign. The Republican, if he wins, has promised to create a new government post called ‘secretary of cost-cutting’ tailored specifically for Musk.

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“..you desperately decide to call him all the bad names at once.”

• The Atlantic Mocked For ‘Trump Is Hitler’ Hit-Piece (RT)

The Atlantic magazine and its staff writer Anne Applebaum have faced widespread criticism after publishing an op-ed that compares former US President Donald Trump to infamous dictators like Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, and Benito Mussolini. The article, which claims Trump is borrowing rhetoric from some of the 20th century’s most notorious leaders, has been ridiculed online, particularly by pro-Trump commenters and political figures. Some have also drawn attention to Applebaum’s links to the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a CIA cutout. The controversy erupted after Applebaum, a staff writer for The Atlantic and a member of the board of NED, argued that Trump’s use of terms like “vermin” to describe his opponents and his references to “criminal illegal immigrants as animals” echoed the dehumanizing language of the named dictators.

The headline of her article –”Trump Is Speaking Like Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini– ignited a flurry of backlash. The Trump campaign dismissed the piece as “fake news by a third-rate media outlet,” while figures on social media openly mocked Applebaum and the magazine. Among the first to respond was journalist Glenn Greenwald, who commented, “When you spend eight years calling a person every bad name you can think of—including Hitler—and it doesn’t work, so you desperately decide to call him all the bad names at once.” Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, also ridiculed the piece, responding with “I can’t stop laughing.” British conservative commenter Ben Kew chimed in as well, mocking The Atlantic’s editorial process: “I love the idea that the editors sat around and thought, ‘Let’s come up with a headline for Anne Applebaum’s piece that will really scare the average voter.’”

Critics of Applebaum also pointed to her connections to the NED, a government-funded organization with links to US intelligence operations. Applebaum’s critics, including journalist Mike Benz, accused her of pushing a pro-intelligence agenda. “Anne Applebaum is on the board of directors for the most notorious CIA cut-out in US history,” Benz stated, suggesting her opinion pieces often align with US national security interests. NED is funded by the US State Department to do, in the words of its founder, Carl Gershman, what “was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA.” In recent years, the NED helped foment the 2014 Maidan coup in Ukraine, sponsored meetings of anti-Beijing officials and delegates in Taiwan, and financed a UK-based organization working to drive right-wing American news outlets out of business.

Her published opinions and those of the US national security state rarely diverge. Writing for the Atlantic, she has advocated regime change in Russia, accused Trump of planning to “abandon” Ukraine and NATO, and accused Musk of “weakness” and “arrogance” over his refusal to help Kiev’s forces guide kamikaze drones into Russian naval targets in Crimea. Despite her prominent role at NED, she has denied any personal links to the CIA. Nonetheless, critics highlight the close alignment of her views with US foreign policy initiatives. The Atlantic has yet to respond to the widespread backlash against the article.

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“It is a federal crime to pay people with the intention of inducing or rewarding them to cast a vote or to get registered, an offense punishable by prison time.”

• Elon Musk Launches Million-Dollar-A-Day Giveaway For Petition Signers (ZH)

Elon Musk continued his town hall tour through the critical battleground state of Pennsylvania on Saturday evening, this time in the working-class town of Harrisburg. Speaking to thousands packed inside a megachurch – formerly AMP Incorporated’s headquarters – Musk walked onto the stage with rock-n-roll blasting in the background. Almost immediately, he announced a $1 million-a-day giveaway. The promotion began on Saturday night. It runs until November’s election and is open to anyone who signs his online petition supporting the US Constitution. “One of the challenges we’re having is, like, how do we get people to know about this petition?” Musk told the audience of blue-collar workers, many of whom were youngsters with families, adding, “This news, I think, is going to really fly.” On X, Musk wrote, “The goal of the $1M/day prize is to maximize awareness of our petition to support The Constitution.”

Musk’s political action organization, America PAC, has been responsible for the town hall events and will be doling out a million dollars daily to anyone who signs the petition. X user DogeDesigner noted, “Elon Musk really knows how to get legacy media to promote for free.” The petition Musk has asked people to sign reads: “The First and Second Amendments guarantee freedom of speech and the right to bear arms. By signing below, I am pledging my support for the First and Second Amendments.” “Our goal is to get 1 million registered voters in swing states to sign in support of the Constitution, especially freedom of speech and the right to bear arms. This program is exclusively open to registered voters in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Nevada, Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin and North Carolina. Expires October 21,” the petition said.

Google Trends data shows that searches for “Elon Musk petition” have surged nationwide. The Wall Street Journal commented on Musk’s announcement: “It is a federal crime to pay people with the intention of inducing or rewarding them to cast a vote or to get registered, an offense punishable by prison time.” According to OpenSecrets, America PAC has spent more than $119 million during the 2024 election cycle. Meanwhile…

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“..paving the way for both nations to step up their military drills near Russia’s borders..”

• Germany and UK To Sign ‘Historic’ Defense Pact – Sunday Times (RT)

The UK and Germany will sign a bilateral defense agreement this week, paving the way for both nations to step up their military drills near Russia’s borders, The Sunday Times has reported. Under the terms of the deal, Britain and Germany will cooperate on arms procurement and development, with the agreement serving as a “first step” for a larger deal between the UK and EU next year, the British newspaper reported. The pact “is expected to enable British and German forces to conduct joint military exercises on NATO’s eastern border with Russia, most probably in Estonia and Lithuania,” The Times noted, without offering further explanation.

Britain and Germany already take part in NATO exercises, such as this year’s ‘Steadfast Defender’ drills. Conducted near Russia’s western borders, ‘Steadfast Defender’ involved 90,000 troops from all 32 NATO states, and was perceived in Moscow as open preparation for “a potential armed clash with Russia.” In addition to these multilateral exercises, Germany already takes part in smaller-scale bilateral exercises, such as Germany’s ‘Grand Quadriga’ drills with Lithuania earlier this year, and its ‘Baltic Tiger’ maneuvers with Estonia in 2022. The Times’ article suggests that Britain could join these exercises once the new deal is signed.

British Defense Secretary John Healey told the newspaper that the deal is modeled on the 2010 Lancaster House agreement between the UK and France. Under this agreement, Britain and France pledge to create a joint expeditionary force to take part in military drills, to collaborate on developing drones and submarine technology, and to share nuclear-weapons data with each other. During a two-day NATO summit in Brussels this week, Healey also announced that British troops stationed in Estonia will receive new drone warfare equipment and training, and that the UK will work with Germany, France, Poland and Italy to create new long-range missiles for Ukraine.

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..“fear of war in Europe” was the top concern (81%) of young Germans..”

• Germany’s Scholz Shoots Down Ukraine’s ‘Victory Plan’ (RT)

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has poured cold water on Vladimir Zelensky’s ‘victory plan’, refusing to acquiesce to some of its key points. He argued that the EU has a responsibility to ensure that the conflict in Ukraine does not become a war between Russia and NATO. On Wednesday, Zelensky presented his vision to the Ukrainian parliament, acknowledging that its success largely depends on Kiev’s Western backers. The plan consists of eight points, three of which are classified. Among the publicly disclosed points are a demand that Ukraine be immediately admitted into NATO. Secondly, Kiev wants its Western backers to lift all restrictions on the use of long-range missiles, including strikes against targets deep inside Russia’s internationally recognized territory.

Speaking to reporters following the EU summit in Brussels on Thursday, Scholz said that “Germany’s stance on the issues that are touched upon” in Zelensky’s plan remain the same. The chancellor added that it is his duty to prevent the Ukraine conflict from escalating into a full-blown war between NATO and Russia. With respect to Ukraine’s repeated requests for German-made Taurus long-range missiles, Scholz reiterated that he did not “deem this the right supply – and this still holds.” The German chancellor also put the brakes on Zelensky’s demand for fast-track NATO membership, pointing to the bloc’s July summit in Washington where proponents of quick membership were not able to convince skeptics, including the US and Germany. According to Scholz, the general consensus reached at the gathering was merely that Ukraine was irreversibly on its way to full membership at some unspecified point in the future when certain conditions were met.

Earlier this month, the German media reported that Zelesnky had attempted to make Scholz change his mind during the Ukrainian leader’s European tour last week, but failed. Commenting on Zelensky’s plan on Wednesday, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova dismissed it as a “set of incoherent slogans” and a “plan for the misfortune of Ukraine and the Ukrainian people.” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, for his part, called on the Ukrainian leadership to “sober up.” Against this backdrop, a recently published survey by the British multinational oil and gas company Shell indicated that “fear of war in Europe” was the top concern (81%) of young Germans.

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“Putin understands that war between Washington and Russia means end times, and he wants to avoid that at all costs..”

• Is Russia Finally Acknowledging Reality? (Paul Craig Roberts)

I see Putin as a successful leader. He has rescued Russia from demoralization from the Soviet collapse, which resulted in a once powerful state being dismembered, looted and embarrassed by its Jewish oligarchs and Washington. Putin has rebuilt the Russian economy, despite Washington’s sanctions and Putin’s incompetent central bank director. Putin has restored Russian pride, the Russian family, and civil morality. He is a rare successful leader. But as a war leader he has been Putin the Unready, caught off guard by the Georgian invasion of South Ossetia organized by Washington, by Washington’s overthrow of the Ukrainian government, and by the West’s response to his Special Military Operation in Donbas. Putin has accepted insult after insult, provocation after provocation, thus ever-widening the conflict and inviting more conflicts elsewhere as in the Middle East.

It is unclear to me why Putin accepted Washington’s overthrow of the Ukrainian government. Did he simply lack the military resources to prevent it, or was he unable to understand what was happening? The conflict that occurred 8 years later was the consequence of Putin’s failure to read the writing on the wall. Perhaps he was constrained by the treasonous class, the worshipers of the West, traitors I refer to as “Atlanticist Integrationists.” These traitors are now referred to in Russia as “the Fifth Column.” For the most part they are gone, except for the Russian central bank director, who continues to do Russia more harm than the West does. I think the explanation of Putin’s behavior is that Putin understands that war between Washington and Russia means end times, and he wants to avoid that at all costs. Thus, his willingness to accept endless insults and provocations.

But what Putin does not seem to understand is that Washington is relentless in its efforts to impose its agenda of Washington’s hegemony, and that Russia, China and Iran are obstacles in the way of this agenda and, therefore, are to be eliminated. Putin might regard such an agenda as preposterous, but it is nevertheless the agenda. Washington is yet to announce the abandonment of the Wolfowitz Doctrine of American hegemony and unilateralism. As long as this is Washington’s agenda, no understanding signed with Washington has any meaning. As long as Putin continues to accept Washington’s aggression, the aggression will continue. Putin’s acceptance of provocations have gone so far that the West no longer believes his threats. Both the outgoing and incoming NATO Secretary Generals said that we need pay no attention to whatever Putin says as he never means it. Did Putin understand that this was the price of endlessly accepting provocations? Did he understand that he was destroying the credibility of his warnings?

Putin, trying to avoid war, has repeated the same mistake in the Middle East. I was heartened when suddenly Putin showed proactive capability and quickly moved the Russian Air Force into Syria, thus preventing the American war criminal, Obama, from invading Syria. I concluded, wrongly, that Russia had decided to bring Washington’s aggression to a halt. But it was only a one time deal. Putin, trying to avoid war by leaving Syria, Iran, and Hezbollah without air protection, achieved the opposite–the onset of war. Now, according to reports, Putin is scrambling to get air protection to Iran before Israel blows up Iran’s peaceful nuclear reactors, thus spreading radiation over wide areas of Russia. Putin and the Russian General Staff failed to comprehend what happens in the absence of countervailing power. The result is not a damper put on war but the outbreak of war, with Putin now having to issue hard warnings to Israel, warnings that might have no credibility in light of Putin’s past failure to enforce red lines.

Awareness is descending on Russia that the existence of Ukraine as an independent country is an existential threat to Russia. The liberation of Donbas does not demilitarize and deNazify Ukraine or replace Ukraine’s puppet government with an independent one. Will the Russian public and the Russian General Staff permit Putin to agree to end the war simply on the basis of the liberation of Donbas, or will the Russian public and the General Staff insist that Ukraine’s existence is an existential threat to Russia’s existence and insist that the war continue until Ukraine is again a province of Russia? The Russian Fifth Column is busy at work disputing Zbigniew Brzezinski’s conclusion that Russia cannot be a great power if Ukraine is not part of Russia’s sphere of influence. Will the General Staff and the Russian population agree with the Fifth Column or with Brzezinski? If they agree with Brzezinski, they will object to Putin merely kicking the can down the road with a peace deal. It will be unfortunate if Putin’s insistence on peace destabilizes Russia.

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“..SpaceX dominates rocket launches and leads the space race in this solar system..”

• Boeing Explores Asset Sales In Potential Shrinking Of Corporate Footprint (ZH)

The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday morning that Boeing is mulling over asset sales to raise cash levels for its struggling business. On Saturday, Boeing and union heads reached a tentative labor contract agreement that could soon end the money-draining months-long labor strike, while early last week, the planemaker filed a $25 billion shelf registration to provide a “variety of capital options as needed to support the company’s balance sheet over a three-year period.” The new report cites a person familiar with a recent discussion between Boeing’s board and executives at its headquarters in Arlington, Virginia. The meeting centered around potential asset sales, as executives and board members combed through internal reports on the state of each of the planemaker’s units.

Just weeks ago, Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg told employees, “We need to be clear-eyed about the work we face,” adding, “We also need to focus our resources on performing and innovating in the areas that are core to who we are.” Ortberg replaced Dave Calhoun as the president and CEO of Boeing on August 8. He is expected to comment publicly for the first time as CEO on Wednesday, following the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers’ vote on the new labor contract. The company estimated the strike to cost $1 billion. It warned of a $6 billion quarterly loss for the period ending September 30. On Tuesday, just days after Boeing announced plans to cut 10% of its workforce due to intensifying financial pressure, such as dwindling cash reserves and mounting risk of a credit downgrade, as well as prolonged strike, the beleaguered planemaker filed a $25 billion shelf registration.

“This universal shelf registration provides flexibility for the company to seek a variety of capital options as needed to support the company’s balance sheet over a three-year period,” Boeing wrote in the filing. Separately, Boeing entered into a $10 billion “supplemental credit agreement” with a consortium of lenders. It noted that the credit facility provides “additional short-term access to liquidity as we navigate through a challenging environment,” adding that it has not drawn down on this facility or its existing credit revolver. Boeing has already considered selling its rocket-launching joint venture, United Launch Alliance, with Lockheed Martin to Sierra Space for $2-$3 billion. Also, Boeing’s space division is in crisis following the malfunctioning of the Starliner spacecraft.

Separately, Boeing’s competitor, Airbus, laid off 2,500 jobs in its space division, as Elon Musk’s SpaceX dominates rocket launches and leads the space race in this solar system. Boeing’s obsession (Wall Street’s obsession) with DEI, climate, and gender justice ultimately dealt the fatal blow. It’s time to refocus on the fundamentals, like building planes that actually stay in the sky. Is that a hard ask, Boeing?

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“There is no lawsuit that could do the damage that the mainstream media is doing to itself..”

• No, Trump Should Not Sue CBS (Turley)

In an interview with podcast host Dan Bongino, former President Trump said he “thinks” he will sue CBS after it was found to have edited an interview with Vice President Kamala Harris, only the latest such allegation against mainstream media. I hope that he will think again about this latest threat of litigation. I agree with the criticism of the media, including CBS, in the bias shown in the election. However, such a lawsuit would be legally groundless, in my view. If it is any solace, the media is doing enough damage to itself. Many have criticized CBS for its editing of the interview with journalist Bill Whitaker after the network shortened portions of Harris’s answer to a question about the war in Gaza in its initial broadcast. It later provided a full transcript of her remarks online. (For full disclosure, I worked twice under contract with CBS as a legal analyst).

Trump, however, took the matter further in his interview, stating, “[s]o I think I’m going to sue them actually. I think so. No, you know what, they can’t defend it and if they do and even if they win it’s going to be very embarrassing.” Such a lawsuit would fail. The media is allowed to engage in such editing. Indeed, bias itself is not generally actionable. Moreover, there were moments where Whitaker did press Harris in sharp contrast to most of her interviews on shows like The View, Howard Stern’s SiriusXM show, as well as on Late Night with Stephen Colbert. There were some tough moments where Whitaker pushed Harris to give more than soundbite answers. I have been a vocal critic of the mainstream media for its embracing of what I refer to as “advocacy journalism” in my book, The Indispensable Right.

Many in this country view mainstream media as a de facto state media due to the bias shown against Trump and for Democratic talking points. Indeed, the mantra “Let’s Go Brandon!” was embraced by millions as a criticism of the media as much as it was a criticism of President Biden. However, the threats of harassing lawsuits destroys any moral high ground for Trump. It is also entirely unnecessary. As I wrote this weekend, “journalism has become a ship of fools who increasingly write for each other rather than the dwindling numbers of actual readers.”

CBS was widely criticized for the performance of Norah O’Donnell and Margaret Brennan as moderators in the presidential debate. That includes reneging on a pledge not to “fact check” and showing manifest bias in their treatment of the candidates. Television and print outlets are experiencing a sharp decline in revenue and audiences across the industry. As discussed in this weekend’s column, the public is going elsewhere for news. Trust in the media is at a record low. There is no lawsuit that could do the damage that the mainstream media is doing to itself.

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“You can cut back on the fraudulent rackets, or you can cut back on the people.” They are cutting back on the people..”

• Gold, Kamala, Trump, Control, Cash, Murder, Water – Austin Fitts (USAW)

Catherine Austin Fitts (CAF), Publisher of The Solari Report, financial expert and former Assistant Secretary of Housing (Bush 41 Admin.), gives her take on gold, Kamala, Trump, control, cash, murder and water. On gold’s rocket rise, CAF says, “Gold is very important. We divide gold into two positions: Your ‘core’ position and your ‘investment’ position. . . . Right now, gold looks phenomenally attractive as a core position. It is also attractive as an investment position.” Why the big move up now? CAF says, “Part of it is the incredible monetary policies and the monetary inflation coming from the central banks. The other is too many people are watching government implode in a variety of different ways, and people are saying I want a core position in gold.

We are also seeing the BRICs . . . and seeing states in the US move to put gold and silver in a position to be used as a currency. So, we are watching people put monetary reserves in gold and monetary liquidity in gold. That is happening steadily, and more and more people are saying they need a percentage of their assets in gold. . . . We are in a long-term bull market in gold.” On Kamala Harris, the operative word is “meltdown.” CAF says, “Kamala is in, what we call in a campaign, a ‘meltdown.’ If you look at the current meltdown, I am baffled because why would somebody with her characteristics be made the nominee? You are talking about major donors putting major money behind her. Why would they spend that much money if there were serious holes in her vetting and she is inclined to melt down this way? It’s kind of baffling.”

On Trump, what is the first thing he should do if re-elected? CAF says, “He should stop the poisoning of the American people. This is one of the reasons we did this issue on water. The American people are being poisoned. . . . I travel a lot by car. I see deterioration in the air, in the water, in the food–they are being poisoned. And, of course, the big one is the CV19 vaccines. Vaccines are poisoning Americans. There was just a big ruling against putting fluoride poison being added to municipal water supplies. One of the things you can do is to march down to your city or county and tell them to stop wasting money on putting poison in your water. If you reverse that, it is one important action you can take.”

The Deep State and central bankers want total control of your money and your life. Fitts says this is why she started pushing the use of cash instead of digital transactions. She calls it “Make Cash Great Again.” . . . If we don’t fix the finances from an actuarial standpoint, they are going to continue to delay benefits or lower life expectancy, and that is what they are doing. They are balancing the books by lowering life expectancy.” One way to lower life expectancy is to inject people with a so-called vaccine that is really a bioweapon that murders and disables people. That is exactly what happened with the CV19 vax, and the deaths or murders are still piling up. CAF says, “You can cut back on the fraudulent rackets, or you can cut back on the people.” They are cutting back on the people by any measure.

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“..it’s beyond horrendous, it’s beyond comprehension.”

• ‘It’s Like We’re Watching Auschwitz on TikTok’ (Gabor Maté)

Had there been YouTube and Instagram and TikTok around Auschwitz, this is what we would have seen, people burning alive. And it’s beyond horrendous, it’s beyond comprehension.” In an online meeting with French activist and film producer Frank Barat on Monday, Canadian physician Gabor Mate explored the psychological complexities of witnessing atrocities in Gaza and Palestine, saying: “It’s like we’re watching Auschwitz on TikTok.” They delve into the emotional and historical roots of violence and oppression, highlighting the trauma, guilt, and helplessness experienced by observers. Mate stresses the need to acknowledge these emotions and examines the normalisation of violence, while contemplating the future implications for Gaza and global society.

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“..looking after his children and his wife and building an understanding of his family and these… new circumstances of freedom..”

• Julian Would Not Have Survived Without Plea Deal – Assange’s Father (RT)

John Shipton, the father of WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange, has spoken to RT about his son’s plea deal with the US and what the publisher has been doing since regaining his freedom four months ago. Assange spent five years in a high-security prison in the UK as he fought extradition to the US, which had accused him of unlawfully obtaining and disclosing classified information, much of which related to American war crimes. In June, he struck a plea bargain with the US Justice Department, formally acknowledging some guilt and waiving his right to legal recourse in exchange for freedom. “I pled guilty to journalism,” the Wikileaks founder explained later. Speaking of his son’s ordeal, Shipton – who is currently visiting Russia – told RT on Saturday that “the US, in its pursuit of those that it does not like, is clearly quite ruthless and vindictive.”

“I imagine if not for the intercession of the Australian government, the Australian people and the Australian parliament, if not for that intercession [which made the plea deal possible], Julian would not have survived,” he stressed. Shipton gave his interview in Moscow alongside Mira Terada, a Russian journalist who was extradited to the US from Finland in late 2010s on accusations of money laundering and spent 46 months in an American prison. Assange’s father arrived to Moscow on the invitation of Terada, who is now co-chair of the BRICS Journalists Association. Being in a US prison is “the worst experience” a human being can have, Terada insisted. “It is a human rights violation from the moment when they kidnap you to the moment when they release you,” she said, adding that inmates are being subject to both physical and psychological torture.

“I am confident that he [Assange] would never have a fair trial [in the US], but it is a big question if he would make it alive till the trial,” she said. Shipton recalled that he was “elated” when Assange was released from prison, saying that “a great burden had been lifted from myself and many hundreds of thousands of people, who ardently fought for Julian’s freedom for many years.” Some of those activists – in the UK, Germany, France, Russia, New Zealand, Canada, Australia and South America – became “rather like an extended family” to us, he added. According to Assange’s father, he “did not use hope as a tool for energy” when his son remained behind bars, but relied on “faith that the people of the world would object fundamentally to the site of an injustice and move towards righting that and bringing about justice.”

“I do not have fears” about Julian Assange’s future at the moment, Shipton said. “I think the arrangements that the diplomats and lawyers have made with the US are substantial enough to allow Julian to live a normal life.” The Wikileaks co-founder is now busy “looking after his children and his wife and building an understanding of his family and these… new circumstances of freedom,” he said. Assange is “a voracious reader and very curious. So I imagine that he is furthering his knowledge in the areas of his interests, which are vast.” When asked about whether his son is planning to return to journalism, Shipton replied: “I have no way of answering that question.”

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All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO).

• Pentagon Says There is No Hard Evidence of Aliens Visiting Earth (Sp.)

Pentagon Press Secretary Major General Patrick Ryder this week made it clear exactly what the US military reportedly knows about aliens’ alleged visits to Earth. “The truth is out there, Jeff, and the truth is we have no evidence to indicate extraterrestrial life has visited the planet,” he told Task and Purpose reporter Jeff Schogol during a press event on Thursday, when the latter asked him what the Pentagon knows about aliens and UFOs. Ryder’s revelations can hardly be considered a novelty as the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), set up specifically to investigate UFOs (or UAPs as they are often referred to today) and other inexplicable phenomena, said as much in a report released back in March.

“To date, AARO has found no verifiable evidence for claims that the US government and private companies have access to or have been reverse-engineering extraterrestrial technology,” Maj. Gen. Ryder said in a statement issued on March 8. “Also, AARO has found no evidence that any US government investigation, academic-sponsored research, or official review panel has confirmed that any sighting of a UAP represented extraterrestrial technology.” Ryder also pointed out at the time that “all investigative efforts, at all levels of classification, concluded that most sightings were ordinary objects and phenomena and the result of misidentification.”

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Matrix

 

 

Casey Means

 

 

Dough

 

 

Ivy

 

 

Bai Cai

 

 

No way

 

 

Support the Automatic Earth in wartime with Paypal, Bitcoin and Patreon.

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle October 16 2024

Oct 162024
 
 October 16, 2024  Posted by at 9:00 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  57 Responses »


Peter Stackpole Sophia Loren in a Manhattan Coffee, NYC 1958

 

• Trump Promises Government Position For Musk (RT)
• California Gov’t Blocks New Musk Rocket Launches, Citing Trump Support (JTN)
• Staying In Touch With Putin Would Be ‘Smart’ – Trump (RT)
• Hungary Publicly Backs Trump (RT)
• Fani Willis Tries To Block Nathan Wade From Testifying To Congress (JTN)
• Walzing Around Free Speech (Turley)
• Zelensky Wants West To Fight Russia – Exiled Ukrainian Opposition Leader (RT)
• ‘Elite’ Ukrainian Troops Surrender In Kursk Region – Chechen Commander (RT)
• The Road to War (Paul Craig Roberts)
• This Will Destroy the Dollar (Jim Rickards)
• Emirates Flags ‘Serious Talks’ With Boeing (RT)
• Trust in US News Media Hits Record Low – Gallup (RT)
• British Government’s Novichok Trial Reveals A Toxic Shock (Helmer)
• Druzhba: Oil Mega-Pipeline That Evaded US Sabotage (Sp.)

 

 

This goes fast!

 

 

Twitter/X videos don’t embed properly. Hope that is temporary.

 

 

PA mail-in

O’Keefe

Youngkin

 

 

 

 

 

 

“We’ll have a new position: secretary of cost-cutting. Elon wants to do that..”

• Trump Promises Government Position For Musk (RT)

Former US President and Republican candidate Donald Trump has promised to create a new office specifically for SpaceX and Tesla boss Elon Musk should he win the November election. The presidential hopeful made the remarks as he appeared on Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures. Trump praised the billionaire as a “great business guy” and a “great cost-cutter,” floating a possible White House role for him. “You think of him for science and rockets and every time he’s telling me about a new screw that was developed. He’s developed a new screw. Screws are difficult and it’s made out of titanium and it’s so exciting,” Trump stated. “We’ll have a new position: secretary of cost-cutting. Elon wants to do that, and we have incredible people. He’s running a big business,” he added, claiming Musk has already shown interest in taking such a role.

Trump also spoke about Musk’s ambitious space plans, stating the latter had promised him to “get to Mars before the end of my administration, which will be long before, hopefully, China or Russia.” Musk has long been an open backer of Trump and has repeatedly made bold statements in support of the Republican. Earlier this month, he made a surprise appearance at a Trump campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, calling the November vote “the most important election of our lifetime” and claiming the opposing side “wants to take away your freedom of speech.” Separately, Musk attacked those fellow billionaires who are backing Vice President and Democratic candidate Kamala Harris, suggesting they were “terrified” of a potential Trump victory given that many of them were likely on the Jeffrey Epstein client list. Trump suggested that Epstein’s “black book” could be made public if he wins the election.

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SpaceX is what Boeing and NASA once were.

• California Gov’t Blocks New Musk Rocket Launches, Citing Trump Support (JTN)

The California government denied an Air Force request to allow Elon Musk’s SpaceX to increase its California rocket launches, citing Musk’s politics. The Department of Defense and a large bipartisan coalition of lawmakers endorsed the launch expansion, with some center-left housing activists attacking the vote as no different than the California Coastal Commission’s consistent denial of housing. The Air Force and Space Force had requested that the California Coastal Commission allow SpaceX to increase its annual permitted launches from Vandenberg Air Force Base in Santa Barbara from 36 to 50. “Elon Musk is hopping about the country, spewing and tweeting political falsehoods and attacking FEMA while claiming his desire to help the hurricane victims with free Starlink access to the internet,” said Commissioner Gretchen Newsom at the meeting. “I really appreciate the work of the Space Force,” said Commission Chair Caryl Hart at the meeting.

“But here we’re dealing with a company, the head of which has aggressively injected himself into the presidential race and he’s managed a company in a way that was just described by Commissioner Newsom that I find to be very disturbing.” The bipartisan Congressional coalition signing a letter of support included a wide range of members of Congress, from leading Democrats Pete Aguilar, D-Redlands, and Ted Lieu, D-Torrance, to Republicans Michelle Steel, R-Fountain Valley, and Darrel Issa, R-San Diego. Creating a reason beyond political considerations, Commissioner Dayne Bocho said, “I do believe that the Space Force has failed to establish that SpaceX is a part of the federal government, part of our defense.” NASA currently does not have any of its own active vehicles for transporting goods or humans to space, and must rely either on Russia, or on American commercial partners such as SpaceX, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, and United Launch Alliance, a joint venture of Boeing and Lockheed Martin.

Boeing’s Starliner was sent to space in June for its first manned mission to the International Space Station. The eight day mission has now turned into an eight month mission due to the Starliner capsule being deemed unsafe to bring the astronauts home; soon thereafter, one Russian Soyuz capsule went to the station, after which NASA sent up a SpaceX Dragon capsule to carry back the stranded astronauts. Boeing, which has outsourced (and significantly offshored) 70% of its design, engineering, and manufacturing, has lost $33 billion over the past five years following reliability concerns and two fatal crashes of its new, best-selling 737 Max 8 plane due to design, maintenance, and training-related issues. As noted by conservative leaders, Musk cited the state’s policies — specifically its new rule banning parental notification for gender change requests from K-12 students — for his official relocation of X, formerly known as Twitter, and SpaceX to Texas.

“First Newsom drove SpaceX to move its headquarters out of California,” said Congressman Kevin Kiley, R-Rocklin, on X. “Now, his Coastal Commission is denying their launch plan because the commissioners don’t like Elon’s political posts.” First Amendment advocates wondered how it was legal to consider Musk’s legally protected political speech in its regulatory actions. “While the commission can consider the nature of SpaceX’s activities and their environmental impact, the First Amendment forbids government agencies from leveraging regulatory power to stifle protected speech,” said the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a pro-First Amendment legal nonprofit, in a statement. “That was true when Florida’s government punished Disney for opposing Gov. Ron DeSantis’s education policies, it was true when a New York agency leaned on insurance companies to cut ties with the NRA because of its political advocacy, and it’s true here.”

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“If I’m friendly with people, if I can have a relationship with people, that’s a good thing, not a bad thing..”

• Staying In Touch With Putin Would Be ‘Smart’ – Trump (RT)

Former US President Donald Trump has refused to confirm or deny contacting Russian President Vladimir Putin since leaving office in 2021, but said that doing so would have been “a smart thing.” Trump has repeatedly vowed to use his “great relationship” with Putin to end the Ukraine conflict if he is elected next month. American journalist Bob Woodward’s latest book, ‘War’, which was published this week, claims that Trump secretly spoke to Putin seven times since leaving office in 2021, and sent Russia Covid-19 testing equipment in 2020, while he was still president. Trump’s campaign initially declared that “none of these made up stories by Bob Woodward are true,” but in an interview with Bloomberg Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait on Tuesday, the former president struck a more ambiguous tone.

“I don’t comment on that, but I will tell you that if I did, it’s a smart thing,” Trump told Mickelthwait. “If I’m friendly with people, if I can have a relationship with people, that’s a good thing, not a bad thing, in terms of a country…he’s got 2,000 nuclear weapons and so do we.” Trump maintains that the Ukraine conflict never would have begun if he had won the 2020 election, and that President Joe Biden’s “stupid words” antagonized Putin into launching his offensive in February 2022. Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris’ promise of open-ended support for Ukraine risks dragging the US into “World War III,” he has repeatedly declared. After meeting Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky last month, Trump boasted that he had a “very good relationship” with both Zelensky and Putin and promised to “get [the Ukraine conflict] resolved very quickly” if he wins November’s election.

According to his running mate, J.D. Vance, Trump would likely start talks with Russia, Ukraine, and European stakeholders to establish a demilitarized zone along the current front line, with Ukraine agreeing to stay out of NATO The Kremlin has cast doubt on Trump’s promises of peace, with spokesman Dmitry Peskov suggesting that he does not “think there is a magic wand” that can stop the fighting overnight. Peskov confirmed last week that Trump did indeed send Covid-19 tests to Russia in 2020.. “But about the phone calls – it’s not true,” he added.

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“They already had great cooperation during Trump’s presidential term. Since then, they have maintained this relationship..”

• Hungary Publicly Backs Trump (RT)

A victory for Donald Trump in the upcoming US presidential election would be the best outcome for Hungary, the country’s Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said in an interview with RIA Novosti on Tuesday. Budapest will respect the choice of US voters regardless, he added. Szijjarto had previously said US-Hungarian relations were strongest when Trump was in the White House and that Trump’s reelection would improve the chances of securing peace in the world. “We are very proud of the fact that President Trump usually refers to his friendly relationship with [Hungarian] Prime Minister [Viktor] Orban,” Szijjarto said. “The two of them enjoy a great relationship both on a personal and professional basis. They already had great cooperation during Trump’s presidential term. Since then, they have maintained this relationship,” he revealed.

The Hungarian foreign minister went on to say: “If I look at the US elections from the Hungarian angle … it would be much better for us if Trump were elected by the Americans. “On the other hand, I would like to stress that, since we are not American citizens, we always respect the results of the elections in the United States, regardless of the outcome. We try to build the best relationship because this shows respect for the will of the American people,” Szijjarto concluded. Orban and Trump established close relations during the latter’s presidency, and the Hungarian leader has been an enthusiastic supporter of the Republican’s current campaign, saying earlier this month that he would “open several bottles of champagne” if Trump were elected. Both have also advocated for a swift diplomatic solution to the Ukraine conflict, and Orban has said on more than one occasion that there would be a greater chance of reaching a peace deal if Trump were to win.

Meanwhile, Szijjarto had earlier denounced the US Democratic Party’s nominee Kamala Harris over her comments regarding the Hungarian prime minister. Last week, during an appearance with Stephen Collbert on CBS News, Harris was asked about Trump’s relationship with world leaders, including Orban, Chinese President Xi Jinping, and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. In response, the US vice president described them as “dictators, autocrats, and people who could rightly be called killers.” Szijjarto said later: “This is outrageous. It’s unacceptable to speak about my prime minister in such a manner. It shows a complete lack of respect for him and the Hungarian people.” He also suggested that such words were “definitely not the best start” for any future relations. The latest polls show the Democratic and Republican nominees locked in a dead heat with less than a month to go. Election day is November 5, although early voting by mail has already started in some states.

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He knows too much.

• Fani Willis Tries To Block Nathan Wade From Testifying To Congress (JTN)

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is seeking to block former special prosecutor Nathan Wade from testifying before Congress, arguing he might “improperly divulge confidential information.” In a letter released Monday to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio., the Georgia attorney said that Wade’s testimony could violate protected privileges that are upheld by the Fulton County District Attorney’s office. “I am concerned that your demand for Mr. Wade’s testimony would force him to improperly divulge confidential information that is protected by privileges held by the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office and demands that Mr. Wade violates State Bar of Georgia rules that govern conduct of attorneys,” the letter reads. Republicans reacted angrily, suggesting a coverup. “What is she trying to hide,” the committee’s GOP majority asked on its official X account.

The letter was written on Oct. 11 and the House Judiciary Committee released it on the social media platform, X on Monday. A GOP-led U.S. House panel subpoenaed Wade as part of an investigation into his romantic relationship with Willis. Last year Willis indicted former President Donald Trump and 18 co-defendants over their efforts to challenge the 2020 election results in Georgia. A Trump co-defendant tried to have Willis removed upon learning she and Wade, whom she appointed as special prosecutor in the case, had a romantic relationship. Among the arguments was that Willis financially benefited from the deal, considering, in part, Wade was paying for them to take romantic vacations together out of the funds he was paid in the case. Willis requested in the letter to Jordan that he retract his request for Wade to testify.

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“..Now the public is being asked to vote for the most anti-free speech ticket in centuries..”

• Walzing Around Free Speech (Turley)

On Sunday, Walz’s dance partner was Fox News host Shannon Bream, who seemed to be fighting vertigo as the candidate tried to deflect his shocking prior statements on free speech. Bream asked Walz about his prior declaration that there is “no guarantee to free speech on misinformation or hate speech”— a statement that runs counter to decades of Supreme Court decisions. Walz notably did not deny or retract his statement. Instead, his interview ironically became itself a flagrant example of misinformation. First of all, misinformation and hate speech are not exceptions to the First Amendment: Whether it is the cross burnings of infamous figures like KKK leader Clarence Brandenburg or the Nazis who marched in Skokie, Ill., hate speech is protected. Yet both Harris and Walz are true believers in the righteousness of censorship for disinformation, misinformation and malinformation.

The Biden administration defines misinformation as “false, but not created or shared with the intention of causing harm” — meaning it would subject you to censorship even if you are not intending harm. It defines malinformation as “based on fact, but used out of context to mislead, harm, or manipulate.” So you can post “true facts,” but would still be subject to censorship if you are viewed as misleading others with your pesky truth-telling. Furthermore, “book bans” are not equivalent to the Harris-Walz censorship policies. After years of supporting censorship and blacklisting, Democrats are attempting to deflect questions by claiming that the GOP is the greater threat. “We’re seeing censorship coming in the form of book bannings in different places,” Walz told Bream. “We’re seeing attempts in schools.” First, a reality check: The Biden-Harris administration has helped fund and actively support the largest censorship system in our history, a system described by one federal court as “Orwellian.”

These are actual and unrelenting efforts to target individuals and groups for opposing views on subjects ranging from gender identity to climate change to COVID to election fraud. While Walz and others rarely specifically reference the book bans in question, Florida is one state whose laws concern age limits on access to graphic or sexual material in schools. School districts have always been given wide latitude in making such decisions on curriculum or library policies. Indeed, while rarely mentioned by the media, the left has demanded the banning or alteration of a number of classic books, including “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “Of Mice and Men,” under diversity or equity rationales. I have long opposed actual book bans perpetrated by both the left and the right. However, school districts have always made such access and curriculum decisions. Finally, Walz and others often sell censorship by citing the dangers of child pornography or of threats made against individuals.

Walz on Sunday followed Hillary Clinton’s recent pro-censorship campaign as he employed such misdirection. “The issue on this was the hate speech and the protected hate speech — speech that’s aimed at creating violence, speech that’s aimed at threats to individuals,” he claimed. “That’s what we’re talking about in this.” First, he’d said there is no protected hate speech. Second, the law already provides ample protections against threats toward individuals. What’s most striking is that, after years of unapologetically embracing censorship (often under the Orwellian term “content moderation”), the left does not seem to want to discuss it in this election. Democrats in Congress opposed every major effort to investigate the role of the Biden administration in the social-media censorship system it constructed. Many denied any such connection. Elon Musk ended much of that debate with the release of the Twitter Files showing thousands of emails from the administration targeting individuals and groups with opposing views.

Now the public is being asked to vote for the most anti-free speech ticket in centuries — but neither Harris nor Walz want to talk about it in any detail. The result may be the largest bait-and-switch in history.

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“He called on Europeans to prevent their continent from “sliding into the darkness of neo-Nazism.”

• Zelensky Wants West To Fight Russia – Exiled Ukrainian Opposition Leader (RT)

Parts of Europe could be turned into “a concentration camp” as Kiev tries to provoke a war between the West and Russia, exiled Ukrainian opposition leader Viktor Medvedchuk has warned. Writing in an article for the Other Ukraine news outlet on Monday, Medvedchuk suggested that the primary goal of Vladimir Zelensky’s so-called ‘victory plan’ – which he has been touting to Kiev’s foreign backers – is to push the collective West “into a war with Russia under the leadership of Ukraine and Zelensky personally.” Pointing to how some officials in Kiev have already hailed Ukraine as “the most democratic country in Europe,” claiming it would be “at the top of the EU member states” if it joins the bloc, Medvedchuk suggested that citizens in some European countries could soon be compelled into military service, similarly to how this is enforced in Ukraine.

“Why should men be caught on the streets for war with Russia only in Ukraine? Everything is moving towards the fact that such a ‘festival of democracy’ will be held throughout Europe, and the Ukrainian Territorial Recruitment Office (TCC) will teach this to their European subordinates,” Medvedchuk wrote. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has already suggested that the EU should prepare for war with Russia, he added. Medvedchuk suggested that “Zelensky’s advanced methods” could be used to increase taxes on the population in some European countries in order to fund the military. EU officials could also follow Kiev in banning certain nationalities, religions, and cultures, he warned. “Some may think this is nonsense and an inappropriate joke, but we should remember history,” Medvedchuk said.

“Not long ago, people were burned alive in Europe for the ‘wrong’ nationality and ‘wrong’ political views,” he added, recalling that many Nazi death camps during World War II were guarded by ethnic Ukrainians, who had become “part of the punitive system in Europe.” “Today, it is not Russia, but Nazi Ukraine that dreams of being the gendarme of Europe. And this is a very real scenario, since the process of turning Europe into a concentration camp has been launched,” Medvedchuk claimed. He called on Europeans to prevent their continent from “sliding into the darkness of neo-Nazism.” Medvedchuk was leader of the Opposition Platform – For Life party, formerly the second-largest group in the Ukrainian parliament, until his arrest in April 2022. The party was banned three months later, and Medvedchuk was sent to Russia in exchange for several Ukrainian POWs in September. Since then, he has headed the Other Ukraine movement and acts as chairman of its council.

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“..the units that they considered to be the most unassailable and elite, they are also beginning to slowly lean toward surrendering, as they want to stay alive..”

• ‘Elite’ Ukrainian Troops Surrender In Kursk Region – Chechen Commander (RT)

Many members of the ‘elite’ Ukrainian units that invaded Russia’s Kursk Region often surrender because they are no longer able to fight and want to stay alive, Major-General Apty Alaudinov, the commander of the Akhmat Special Forces from Russia’s Chechen Republic, has said. In an interview with Russian journalist Vladimir Solovyov on Tuesday, Alaudinov rejected Kiev’s claims that Russian soldiers executed nine Ukrainian service members in Kursk Region, many of whom were drone operators. The general dismissed the claim as a psyop, arguing that Ukraine “needs to create fake news to discourage its military from surrendering,” as many of its soldiers “openly say they can fight no more.” Despite these efforts, he added, Ukrainian soldiers “often decide to surrender anyway.”

“What’s interesting is that the units that they considered to be the most unassailable and elite, they are also beginning to slowly lean toward surrendering, as they want to stay alive,” he said. According to Alaudinov, Russia is ready to spare even those who serve in the Aidar Battalion or Azov units, which have been accused of having neo-Nazi sympathies, if they lay down their arms. The general uploaded a video earlier in the day featuring a soldier claiming to be a Ukrainian serviceman who once served in the Aidar Battalion. Standing against a backdrop of Russian and Chechen flags, he said he surrendered voluntarily and asked Alaudinov for help in obtaining Russian citizenship and joining the Ahmat Special Forces.

Several Western media outlets have reported that the Ukrainian military is struggling with exhaustion, low morale, and desertion, with many of the reinforcements arriving at the front suffering from inadequate training, a factor which only exacerbates the above-mentioned issues. Ukraine launched a large-scale incursion into Kursk Region in early August, reportedly committing some of its best troops to the offensive. While they initially made some progress, the incursion forces were halted and later pushed back, according to Moscow. Ukraine has lost more than 23,000 troops since the start of the attack, the Russian Defense Ministry has reported.

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“The Democrats don’t want the US fighting in behalf of Greater Israel prior to the November election, and Putin doesn’t want war prior to the BRICS meeting.”

• The Road to War (Paul Craig Roberts)

The Third Reich is universally demonized, but it was nevertheless far more representative of the German people than the present German government. The present day German government represents the immigrant-invaders. Hitler represented the German people. He rescued them from the unfair burden of the Versailles reparations. He cured inflation and put Germans back to work. He gave them transportation–“the peoples car” — Volkswagen. As David Irving has documented in his histories, Churchill’s War and Hitler’s War, Hitler was forced into war by the British and French. The British gave an unenforceable “guarantee” to the Polish military dictatorship that resulted in Poland refusing to return to Germany the German populations torn from Germany by the Versailles Treaty. Blocked from rescuing Germans via diplomacy from Polish persecution, Germany made an agreement with the Soviet Union to divide Poland in half. Hitler struck first and the Soviet Union soon followed, but the British and French only declared war on Germany.

That is how WWII started. It started when the British and French governments declared war on Germany. Hitler had made it perfectly clear that he did not intend or want war with England and France. Once the British and French governments started the war, it only took Hitler a few weeks to destroy their military forces. Hitler offered England amazing peace terms, including the protection of the British Empire by German forces. Churchill hid the peace terms from his cabinet and ordered the fire-bombing of German cities, a war crime. We are experiencing the same thing in Ukraine today. Washington engineered a coup and overthrew the Ukrainian government and installed a puppet. The puppet began oppressing the Russian areas in Eastern and Southern Ukraine that were attached to Ukraine by Soviet leaders for administrative and political reasons. Ukraine would not stop the persecution and artillery bombardment of the Russian populations and forced Russia to intervene.

Washington and its NATO puppets quickly widened the war, which was headed into WW III until, apparently, Washington backed away from the threat of sending long range missiles into Russia herself. We don’t know for sure, but that seems to be the case. No sooner than we are, hopefully, spared this avenue into war than we find ourselves on another road to war: an Israeli/US attack on Iran. Washington keeps sending more forces allegedly to “protect Israel,” but realistically to support an attack on Iran. Iran is the target, because Iran is in the way of Greater Israel. Not long ago Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, held up a map of Greater Israel–from the Nile to the Euphrates. Just the other day the Zionist Israeli Finance Minister enlarged Greater Israel. It now includes Saudi Arabia.

The purpose of neoconservative Washington’s “wars against terrorism” in the Middle east–Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria until Russia blocked Obama’s attack on Syria–was to end the flow of arms and money to the Hezbollah militia in southern Lebanon. Israel coveting the water resources, the Litani River, twice invaded Lebanon intending to occupy the area. Twice a third world militia–Hezbollah–drove the vaunted Israeli Army out. Ever since the Israeli’s have been scheming to have Americans do the job for them by attacking Iran. If Iran can be destroyed, Hezbollah will be without arms and money, and Zionist Israel can expand. This is what the Middle East situation is about. Christian gentiles and Muslims have to die so that Israel can expand. The Muslims will die, because they are disunited and have been for many centuries, thus pissing away their power. The gentiles will die because they have been made guilty by the Holocaust narrative.

“Christian” evangelicals, who are not Christian in any sense, think that it is God’s will for Americans to die for Israel. This is the level of intelligence in the Western world. Putin’s lack of force is one reason we are facing the risk of nuclear Armageddon. Putin let the conflict in Ukraine widen to the point that his back was to the wall, and he had to say “missiles sent into Mother Russia means the US and NATO are at war with Russia.” Both the outgoing and incoming NATO Secretary Generals said, “There is no reason to believe Putin. He never does anything.” Obviously, these statements reveal that the West is not convinced that Russia will fight, no matter what insults and provocations are heaped upon Putin and Russia.

In the Middle East, after showing proactive leadership and preventing Obama’s Invasion of Syria, Putin again became reactive, leaving all initiative in the hands of Israel and Washington. Consequently, the lack of Russian, Chinese, and Iranian leadership has resulted in the same war conditions arising in the Middle East. For reasons difficult to understand, Russia, China, and Iran have not announced a mutual defense treaty. Such a treaty would immediately end the conflict in the Middle East. Both Israel and Washington are insane, but they still realize that they have zero chance of surviving a conflict with Russia, China, and Iran. So, where is this treaty than can stop World War III? The Democrats don’t want the US fighting in behalf of Greater Israel prior to the November election, and Putin doesn’t want war prior to the BRICS meeting. Therefore, the can will be kicked down the road. But the issue is far from resolved.

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“The BRICS currency is very far along in establishing itself as a viable payment currency.”

• This Will Destroy the Dollar (Jim Rickards)

The subject of a BRICS currency is confusing to most observers and is a fraught topic even for many experts. We’ll call the potential currency a BRIC for convenience although no formal name has been announced. The starting point is to distinguish between a payment currency and a reserve currency. A payment currency is used to settle purchases and sales of tradable goods and services. A reserve currency is the denomination of the currency in which national savings are invested, typically in U.S. Treasury securities or gold. Some currencies perform both functions as reserve and payment currencies especially U.S. dollars and euros. A finance minister or central banker can move from one to the other; currencies earned can be invested as reserves or reserves can be sold to finance purchases. Still, it’s important to bear the distinction in mind when evaluating the use case for each currency, especially BRICs. Put differently, a flaw or deficiency in one usage does not preclude the other.

The BRICS currency is very far along in establishing itself as a viable payment currency. The prerequisites are: agreed-upon value (which can be fixed to another currency, floating or pegged to a weight of gold), secure payments channels (basically high-speed, encrypted digital pipes for authenticated message traffic), digital ledgers and an agreed issuer (the NDB based in Shanghai may be suitable for this purpose but another institution could be created). The single most important element is a sufficiently large membership in the BRICS currency union such that a recipient of BRICS payments can use them for purchases in many jurisdictions for many goods and services. This last point is where most alternative currency payments arrangements fall down. Russia can sell oil to China for yuan (which they are currently doing) but they are constrained in terms of where they can spend the yuan (basically limited to Chinese manufactured goods and semiconductors).

The same issue arises when Russia sells oil to India (for rupees) or weapons to Iran (for rials). The seller is limited in terms of what they can buy with the trading partner’s currency. This constraint goes away in a currency union with 15 or 20 members or more. If Russia earns BRICs from China, they can buy Embraer aircraft from Brazil or semiconductors from Malaysia. For that matter, use of a payment currency in a multimember currency union is not limited to members. With access to the payment channels, non-members can nevertheless agree to receive the BRICS currency in payment confident in their ability to spend it among the other BRICS members who are trading partners. The proof of this is the eurozone, which is currently a 20-member currency union with a single central bank and worldwide acceptance of the euro. Moving from a payment currency to a reserve currency is more difficult. The prerequisite here is a large, liquid bond market.

That bond market has to be surrounded by extensive transactional and legal infrastructure including: securities at all maturities (30 days to 30 years), an underwriting system (primary dealers in the U.S.), an auction system for sales of new issues, a repo market to finance inventories, futures, options, other derivatives (swaps), settlement channels, custodians (DTCC, others), etc. Above all, holders need a good rule of law regime on which to rely in the case of disputes or defaults. All of these elements exist in the reserve currency bond market nonpareil — the U.S. Treasury securities market. None of it exists in the form of a putative BRICS bond market. It would likely take 10 years or longer to create reserve currency infrastructure with the biggest single impediment being the rule of law. That said, there are several interesting developments taking place. The first is that the U.S. is squandering its rule of law advantage with sanctions on Russia, the freezing of the assets of the Central Bank of Russia and efforts to actually steal those assets and convert them into a $50 billion loan to Ukraine using structured finance.

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“..has had to make significant and highly expensive amendments to our fleet programs as a result of Boeing’s multiple contractual shortfalls..”

• Emirates Flags ‘Serious Talks’ With Boeing (RT)

The president of Emirates, one of the world’s largest international airlines, has said the carrier will have “serious conversations” with Boeing after the US manufacturing giant announced that its 777X model will be further delayed. Boeing confirmed last week that the first delivery of its widebody aircraft will be postponed to 2026, nearly six years after the 777X aircraft was due to reach customers. Commenting on the delay, Emirates president Tim Clark stated on Monday that the airline “has had to make significant and highly expensive amendments to our fleet programs as a result of Boeing’s multiple contractual shortfalls, and we will be having a serious conversation with them over the next couple of months.” The United Arab Emirates flagship carrier is also one of Boeing’s largest widebody customers, with an outstanding order for 150 aircraft.

The first 777Xs were originally scheduled for delivery in 2021, but the company has repeatedly pushed back the launch date. In August, the manufacturer suspended 777X flight tests after discovering cracks in a critical component connecting engines to wings. The delivery delay comes as the company grapples with certification hurdles and labor strikes involving nearly 33,000 of its US workers. The ongoing strikes have undercut the production of Boeing’s best-selling planes such as the 737 MAX, 777 and 767, and halted its 777X test program. Last week, Boeing also announced plans to cut 17,000 jobs over the coming months, representing nearly 10% of its workforce, as the aerospace giant’s losses continue to mount.

Clark expressed frustration over revised timelines for 777X deliveries, which have been shared by other airline executives awaiting supplies amid strong travel demand. “Given the Type Inspection Authorization halt on the 777X with no clear timeline for the restart, coupled with strikes entering a fourth week, I fail to see how Boeing can make any meaningful forecasts of delivery dates,” he stated. Emirates has had to launch a $3 billion retrofit program to include 191 aircraft to accommodate the postponement. The program involves upgrading the carrier’s existing fleet of Boeing 777 and Airbus A380 aircraft, installing next-generation seating and overhauling the interiors to extend their operations. With extended delays, the airline has been forced to extend the lifespans of existing jets, increasing aircraft maintenance costs.

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“A large gap remains between Republicans and Democrats, with only 12% of the former expressing trust in media reporting against 54% of the latter.”

• Trust in US News Media Hits Record Low – Gallup (RT)

Less than a third of Americans trust US news media, a record low figure, according to a new Gallup poll published Monday. This year’s poll showed a 1 percentage point drop of Americans who believe the media reports the news fully and accurately from last year. The trend has been on a downward trajectory since 2018. For the third consecutive year, the number of Americans who claim to completely distrust the media remained higher than those who trust it. The new poll, however, demonstrated a slight drop, with 36% of respondents expressing complete distrust versus 39% in 2023. Meanwhile, those having “not very much” confidence in the media grew to reach 33% this year. A large gap remains between Republicans and Democrats, with only 12% of the former expressing trust in media reporting against 54% of the latter.

However, the partisan gap has actually been narrowing in the last couple of years. According to data aggregated by Gallup, in 2022, for instance, some 70% of Democrats expressed confidence in the media. The pollster sampled 1,007 adult Americans living across the country. The survey was conducted over the first two weeks of September via phone interviews. Respondents were picked randomly for the survey. Gallup first asked Americans the question back in 1972 and has conducted the media trust poll on an almost yearly basis since 1997. While in the 1970s, the trust rate hovered around the 70% mark, it had deteriorated to around 55% by the late 1990s, and has continued to drop over the past two decades.

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Sounds barely serious.

• British Government’s Novichok Trial Reveals A Toxic Shock (Helmer)

In the first day of public hearings directed by retired judge Anthony Hughes – titled Lord Hughes of Ombersley (lead image) – the evidence compiled over six years by the police, secret services, CCTV records, and witnesses is that Novichok, identified as one of the world’s fastest acting nerve poisons, was sprayed on the front door-handle of Sergei Skripal’s house in order to kill him by direct contact. “As each of them touched the front door-handle on the way out of the house, that they were poisoned with Novichok,” reported the judge’s chief counsel, Andrew O’Connor KC. “It was this door handle that was the source or, in their [police] term, the ground zero of the Novichok contamination”, (O’Connor page 19, line 13, page 24, line 6). In the official narrative, it then took at least two and a half hours to act on the alleged Russian assassination targets, Sergei and Yulia Skripal, as they sat on a bench in the centre of Salisbury town after drinking at a local pub and then eating at a restaurant.

That was between 1:30 pm and 4 pm on March 4, 2018. Between the prosecution’s alleged murder weapon and the attempted murder, 120 to 150 minutes had elapsed. This contrasts with the official narrative of the Novichok poisoning of Dawn Sturgess on June 30, 2018, that between contact with the poison and her fatal heart attack the elapsed interval was “between about 9.30 and 10 o’clock that morning” — less than 30 minutes. The evidence of the two assassins – Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov — charged with attempted murder of the Skripals includes “plentiful evidence of their movements and actions and we will review it in detail during the coming hearings. The evidence is complex and of course the detail matters. For today’s purposes, I propose simply to outline the effect of the CCTV evidence regarding Petrov and Boshirov’s movements in the course of their two visits to Salisbury.”

In the summary presented to Hughes’ courtroom for the first time of CCTV imagery, there is no evidence at all that the assassins came close to the Skripal house, neither on their first walking tour of the town on March 3, nor on the following fateful day, March 4. “Of course the detail matters” – but there is no fresh evidence of how close or how far the alleged assassins came to the Skripal house. All that is now alleged in the photographic and map displays presented during the hearing is that “both Petrov and Boshirov and the Skripals are in very much the same area at very much the same time. One has to aim off course because two of them are on foot and then there’s the car. But it does seem at least possible that Boshirov and Petrov may even have been in the vicinity of Sergei Skripal’s house at the time that the Skripals were leaving.”

For the inquiry team and its police and government sources, O’Connor admitted the CCTV evidence for the allegation that Boshirov and Petrov sprayed their poison on the Skripal door-handle is missing. “They were then lost from the view of CCTV cameras for 31 minutes before they re-emerged at the junction of the High Street and Bridge Street — that’s the blue marking to the right that you can see there – and walked back towards the station. You will hear evidence, sir, as to where they might have been and what they might have done during that 31-minute period.”

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“Druzhba is also one of the most technically-sophisticated manmade engineering projects in history.”

• Druzhba: Oil Mega-Pipeline That Evaded US Sabotage (Sp.)

Tuesday is the anniversary of the creation of Druzbha – the world’s longest oil pipeline, and one of the most technically sophisticated pieces of man-made engineering every created. Here’s what’s important to know about the project, why it was conceived, and why the US and its allies tried, but failed, to stop it. October 15 marks the 60th anniversary of the inauguration of the Druzhba (‘Friendship’) oil pipeline. Conceived in 1958 at a meeting of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance – the Soviet-led analogue to Western European integration, Druzhba helped forge closer economic links between the USSR and its Eastern European allies, and eventually, between Russia and the whole of Europe. Drawn up to aid an economic boom being experienced by Eastern Europe, Druzhba was built to replace more costly and infrastructure-intensive rail-based oil deliveries.

Sourcing oil from the Volga-Ural oil and gas basin and starting off in Almetyevsk, modern-day Tatarstan, Druzhba runs west to Mozyr in Belarus, where it splits into two routes – one to eastern Germany via Poland, and another through Ukraine toward Bratislava in Slovakia, Prague in the Czech Republic and Budapest in Hungary. Members of the Soviet-led economic alliance, namely Albania, Hungary, Poland, and Czechoslovakia, contributed equipment and know-how, with the USSR and Poland delivering 730,000 tons of 420-1,220 mm pipes, East Germany pumps for pumping stations, Hungary automation equipment and communications gear, and Czechoslovakia valves and fittings. The US sought to sanction the project into submission, slapping restrictions on Western European sales of large-diameter pipes to the Eastern Bloc after the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962. Russian Chelyabinsk’s industrialists saved the day, creating pipes of the necessary diameter.

The success of the project led to the construction of a second line – known as Druzhba-2 and running along the same route, in 1974. With Moscow selling oil to allies via long-term contracts, Eastern Europe was largely insulated from the oil shocks suffered by the West in the 1970s and early 1980s. Between 1971 and 1980, Hungary’s material national income rose by 62%, East Germany’s by 59%, Poland’s by 73%, Czechoslovakia’s by 57%, and capital construction in these countries grew 1.9, 1.7, 2.2, and 1.8 times, respectively. This allowed the region to build tens of millions of new apartments, industrial goods and finished products ranging from cars and electronics to household goods. After the USSR’s collapse, Germany’s reunification and the European Union’s expansion, Druzhba became a key source of fuel for Europe’s economic prosperity, helping Eastern Europe with its difficult transition to the market, and Germany in its effort to build on its status as an industrial powerhouse.

Accounting for expansions (including extensions to deliver oil to southern Germany and Austria), Druzhba holds the record as the longest oil pipeline network in the world, consisting of a whopping 8,900 km of pipe, 46 pumping stations, 38 intermediate pumping stations, and reservoirs that can hold up to 1.5 million cubic meters of oil. Druzhba is also one of the most technically-sophisticated manmade engineering projects in history, crossing the Volga, Oka, Don, Dnepr, Dniestr, Vistula and Dunabe rivers and hundreds of smaller waterways, thousands of roads and railways, the Pinsk Marshes and the mountains of Carpathia. The pipeline has an estimated capacity to pump up to 2 million barrels per day, or nearly a fifth of Russia’s total oil output. Until recently, it accounted for up to half of all Russian oil exports.

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Debt Rattle October 13 2024

Oct 132024
 
 October 13, 2024  Posted by at 8:31 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  64 Responses »


Max Ernst Ubu Imperator 1923

 

• Kamala Unwinding (Kunstler)
• US Election ‘Too Close To Call’ In Swing States – WSJ Poll (RT)
• The Scent of a Harris Panic in the Air (Victor Davis Hanson)
• Shills For Harris (Michael Tracey)
• Dems Won’t Certify Election if Trump Wins (HUSA)
• Trump’s Toughest Foe Could Be Harris Lawyer Marc Elias (Sperry)
• Alien Enemies Act is Not a Viable Legal Basis for “Operation Aurora” (Turley)
• Jon Stewart: Americans Don’t Need Guns To Protect Constitutional Rights (ZH)
• Biden, Netanyahu Closer to Consensus on Attacking Iran (Antiwar)
• Biden Warns Iran Against Going After Trump – WaPo (RT)
• CBS News Faces Integrity Crisis Amid Bias Concerns, Missteps (JTN)
• 3 Million Non-Citizens Have Texas Driver’s Licenses Allowed As Voter ID (JTN)
• DOJ Sues Virginia Over Removing Non-Citizens From Voter Rolls (JTN)
• NATO Could Have Prevented Ukraine Conflict – Hungary FM (RT)
• NATO Planning New Russia Strategy – Politico (RT)
• Boeing To Fire 17,000 Employees (RT)

 

 

 

 

Trump ad

Vance

Jan 6

Kirk

Tucker Dhillon

Hawley Wray

Judge Thomas

Appellate

 

 

 

 

 

 

“She ends as an historical prank on her own country. It must be deeply demoralizing to be used like that in front of the whole world.”

• Kamala Unwinding (Kunstler)

The outstanding question: will the Democratic Party actually go ahead and attempt to execute an election steal despite growing evidence of a developing Trump landslide that might obviate it? The works are already in motion. The mail-in ballots went out long ago and early votes are getting cast by the day. The overseas ballots that require no US address or voter verification are flooding in by the millions and four years of open borders has 10-million illegal aliens (at a minimum) dispersed around the nation, great gobs of them planted in swing states, processed through the DMVs and social services — with the requisite automatic voter registration — their ballots already pre-bundled for harvest.

It could go a few ways. One is, just let’er rip, harvest all those fake votes, stuff the drop-boxes, flood the zone, and do it all right in America’s face as if to say: we can do whatever we want. . . to get whatever we want. . . and you can’t stop us. That is probably the point where blue America finds out exactly what the Second Amendment was designed for. You might also expect a whole lot of state-organized resistance, especially in the populous red ones, Texas, Florida, real court cases over fraud this time, contested certification.

Or, the election could come out a hopeless unresolvable muddle. There’s no precedent for this and no provision in the Constitution, but you can imagine the Supreme Court having to decide a necessary do-over minus all recent gimmicks, paper ballots only, voters with proof of citizenship only, all voting on one re-scheduled election day before January 1. This novelty would be something apart from the clunky Congressional machinery established for settling electoral college disputes, since it is predicated on various states’ inability to determine their electoral college vote in the first place, based on patent irregularity and fraud. You could also imagine a period of disorder so deep and grave that the regime behind “Joe Biden” declares martial law. . . or, alternately the military — the martial institution — has to take matters into its own hands, shoving aside even “Joe Biden” and his filthy retinue. Appalling to consider, I’m sure, but these things happen in history, and the Party of Chaos has set enough mischief in motion to wreck the election and wreck the country. Call it catastrophizing, if you will. There it is.

But to step back from that abyss, it appears that Mr. Trump’s momentum accelerates by the day, that he is becoming, at last, an implacable, irresistible juggernaut who will, perforce, overcome all the gimmicks, traps, and frauds arrayed against him. Kamala seems to think so. Have you ever seen such resignation, such loserdom-in-action as her recent performance on CBS’s 60-Minutes, or her pitiful admission on ABC’s The View that she couldn’t think of anything she would do differently beyond the excellent management of national affairs under “Joe Biden” (and herself as veep). Surely that said it all. She has nothing, brings nothing. Long ago, she was a pretty girl with a law degree and an infectious laugh on the fringes of local politics in San Francisco. The winds of fortune blew her this way and that way until she ended up way over her head, used by the reprobates around her as a mere device to stay out of jail. She ends as an historical prank on her own country. It must be deeply demoralizing to be used like that in front of the whole world.

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With all the shenanigans going on, Trump needs to win by a huge margin. Another reason not to believe these polls.

• US Election ‘Too Close To Call’ In Swing States – WSJ Poll (RT)

Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are locked into a dead heat in all seven of the battleground states that will decide the outcome of next month’s US presidential election, according to a poll published on Friday by the Wall Street Journal. Sampling 4,200 voters, the poll found Harris with a razor-thin lead over Trump in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, and Wisconsin, and Trump holding a slim advantage in Nevada, North Carolina and Pennsylvania. However, the newspaper noted that no lead is wider than two percentage points, except for in Nevada, where Trump leads by five points. All of these results are within the newspaper’s margin of error. Across all seven swing states, Trump leads Harris by 46% to 45%, the poll found. Some 93% of Republicans are backing Trump, while 93% of Democrats are supporting Harris, the WSJ noted, adding that independents prefer Harris by a slim 40% to 39%.

“This thing is a dead heat and is going to come down to the wire. These last three weeks matter,” Republican pollster David Lee, who worked on the survey, told the newspaper. “It really could not be closer,” Democrat pollster Michael Bocian said. “It’s an even-steven, tight, tight race.” A slew of recent polls have shown Trump and Harris within the low single digits of each other in these key states, with Trump gaining the upper hand in every state but Wisconsin in an average compiled by RealClearPolitics. Voters surveyed by the Wall Street Journal ranked the economy and immigration as their top two issues of concern, respectively.

They favored Trump over Harris on economic issues by ten points, and on immigration and border security by 16 points. Harris beat Trump on the issue of abortion by 16 points. By this time in the 2020 campaign, President Joe Biden was leading Trump by five points in the states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Trump won all three of these post-industrial northern battlegrounds in 2016, and lost them to Biden in 2020. Winning all three would likely guarantee the presidency to either Trump or Harris this year.

Baris

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“..so far, the cures for the Harris slide are far worse than the malady itself..”

• The Scent of a Harris Panic in the Air (Victor Davis Hanson)

The 2024 race is still close. But then so was the 1980 Carter-Reagan race at this same juncture. Indeed, incumbent president Carter was then comfortably up in the last two October Gallup polls—before utterly and suddenly evaporating on Election Day. But in the last seven days, there seems a sense of panic in the Harris campaign. How do we know that? Why are Democratic pundits—from Axelrod to Carville—blasting the Harris campaign and otherwise warning of bad things to come? Why are some of the once Democrat sure-thing senate races—e.g., in Ohio, Wisconsin, and even Michigan—tightening up? Pundit poll-watchers are suggesting that Trump is close, even, or slightly ahead in the swing-state polls, suggesting that he is nearing a margin that could cancel out anticipated “ballot irregularities”.

The expected October Harris-Biden surprises—the opportune Fed interest rate cut, the transparently desperate Jack Smith beefed-up re-indictment, the current new Hollywood Trump-hit movie, the desperate Zelensky fly-in to Pennsylvania, the election-cycle customary Bob Woodward unsourced gossip book—seemed so far to have had no effect. Why would any campaign send out the bumbling Tim Walz to a Fox Sunday interview after his disastrous debate? Why is a suddenly smiling Biden so eager to claim candidate and VP Harris as a co-conspirator to his disastrous four years? Why would Harris pivot and now agree to (admittedly mostly softball) interviews, thus confirming to the voting public why she wisely had previously avoided all press conferences, interviews, and town halls? Why—after the last two moderator-rigged ABC and CBS debates—would Harris desperately want another and possibly believe that Trump would ever agree to any such warped forum?

The last 4-5 Harris scripted interviews, but especially on CBS’s 60 Minutes, have been train wrecks. Everyone expected (and was not disappointed) the on-spec word salads, predictable sappy retreats to her misleading bio, the now accustomed deer-in-the-headlights confusion about her prior three years with Biden, and the general mush in lieu of any policy prescriptions. Why would CBS think it worth ruining its already debased reputation by doctoring the transcript of the Harris disastrous interview in a vain attempt at Orwellian repair? Why is a rusty but still narcissistic Barack Obama at last hitting the campaign trail? And is he still effective—or reduced to becoming an Oprah-like caricature? After all, is it wise for the elite Obama (in his now accustomed snarky “clingers” style) to venture out of his mansions (Kalorama? the Hawaii beachfront? or the Martha Vineyard estate?) to talk down to black males struggling under years of a hyperinflationary economy, a flood of illegal immigrants from an open border, and a four-year-spiking crime rate?

Does the Netflix grandee berating black men as victims of false consciousness, misled, and brainwashed into voting for the Trump agenda really win them over to Harris? Does the hundred-million-dollar-plus man Obama persuade anyone by reverting for a few moments to his old community-organizing, fake black patois and his pseudo-racial intimacy of “brothers”? And does it work for Obama (remember “when they go low, we go high”) to blast Trump as racist and crude, when Obama jokes that Trump wears diapers— this after previously suggesting at the Democratic convention that Trump suffered from small genitalia? If this should continue, soon the July 21st coup that removed Biden, along with the Harris pick of Tim Walz, will go down as days of Democrat infamy. Anything can happen in the next three weeks. But so far, the cures for the Harris slide are far worse than the malady itself.

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“These aforementioned attendees were essentially just “seat fillers” — they were not the audience members who were called on to ask pre-selected questions..”

• Shills For Harris (Michael Tracey)

Last night’s Univision “town hall” with Kamala Harris was billed as an exciting opportunity for “undecided Latino voters” to question and evaluate the potential next President of the United States. The corporate press release from Univision advertises it explicitly as such. But viewers at home would have been wholly unaware that this billing was false. As I discovered, having been granted the sacred opportunity to view the event from an adjacent room on the University of Nevada, Las Vegas campus, the carefully curated “town hall” audience was actually comprised of avowed Harris supporters. “I already knew I was going to go for Kamala,” one town hall participant told me. “Part of the reason why I wanted to go was just, like, to also fully support her.” “So you were already decided, before you came?” I asked another. “Yes,” she replied, declaring her support for Kamala.

The audience members I spoke to were selected with the help of a company called FansOnQ, according to the company’s founder, Conny Quintanilla, whose title for yesterday’s event was “Audience Manager.” The company puts out “casting calls” for events like the Latin Grammy Awards, which have been previously held in Las Vegas. It’s a type of company that you might not be consciously aware exists, but once you’re told of its existence, it makes perfect intuitive sense: people who want to dance at award shows are “vetted” by this particular company, perhaps for good looks and rhythmic skills. That’s the same company which filled the seats at Kamala’s town hall. Another person told me he was able to attend because he “knows people” at an unnamed “progressive organization,” which somehow granted him the ability to get in the town hall audience. The person said he works as an intern for Rep. Steven Horsford, Democrat of Nevada. I’m not naming the person because he was wary of attribution. Others quoted here also didn’t want to be identified.

These aforementioned attendees were essentially just “seat fillers” — they were not the audience members who were called on to ask pre-selected questions. Those audience members were flown in from around the country at Univision’s expense. Which is a bit odd, because there would certainly have been plenty of genuine “undecided Latino voters” in Clark County, Nevada who I’m sure would’ve been more than happy to ask Kamala Harris a question. NOTE: The non-question-asking attendees were still integral to the televisual production of the event, hence their recruitment. Uninformed viewers at home were under the false impression that the people they were watching react to Kamala’s answers were “undecided voters,” when numerous of them were in fact pre-committed Harris voters who sought to attend for the specific purpose of demonstrating their support for Kamala.

Naturally, I wanted to interview the actual question-asking attendees. However, a corporate dictate apparently came down prohibiting this. “We won’t be making them available,” Anna Negron, Director of Corporate Communications at TelevisaUnivision, told me when I asked if there would be an opportunity to interview said audience members. She would not elaborate on the reason for this strange secrecy. Reporter Mark Kellner of the New York Post asked Negron the same question, and was similarly dismissed. So the sum total of the authorized journalistic acts that we were permitted to carry out at this event was to sit in a side room and politely view a generously provided video feed of the “town hall,” which was taped several hours before it aired yesterday. For the record, I don’t think she actually used a teleprompter, despite social media allegations to that effect. I can verify that the event was already contrived enough as it is — no need to embellish any phony stories.

Of course, most journalists covering the event simply repeated the conceit that Kamala was empathetically taking questions from “undecided Latino voters.” In other words, they simply regurgitated the corporate press release. Her actual remarks were bereft of any real substance. The only amusing part was when she name-dropped Alberto Gonzales, the former Attorney General under George W. Bush, as one of her cherished Republican endorsements — adding him to the esteemed roster of Dick and Liz Cheney and myriad “national security officials” affiliated with Mitt Romney and John McCain. Perhaps Kamala calculated that the surname “Gonzales” would be extraordinarily appealing to these allegedly “undecided Latino voters.”

It’s worth briefly reminiscing about what the purpose of a “town hall” has traditionally been: for ‘townspeople’ to gather and air their concerns about issues that most affect them. (“Town halls” are actually how some small New England towns are governed — the town halls effectively become temporary citizen-led legislatures to decide questions around zoning and so forth.) Now, though, they’re just glitzy TV productions that accomplish the polar opposite of the free-flowing dialogue and debate with which the term was once associated. Indeed, these events now more resemble the production values of the Latin Grammy Awards — literally — than a forum to scrutinize candidates for public office.

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‘I’ve been told this type of rhetoric is “dangerous to our democracy” or something…’

• Dems Won’t Certify Election if Trump Wins (HUSA)

Despite their constant whining about the Jan. 6, 2021, “insurrection,” the Democrats recently admitted that they won’t certify the 2024 election results if Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is elected. Axios reported that the Democrats would certify the election results only if Trump used “free, fair and honest means to secure a victory,” which, according to Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., is not what Trump would do. This statement implies that he would be declared a winner only if he cheats. “[Trump] is doing whatever he can to try to interfere with the process, whether we’re talking about manipulating electoral college counts in Nebraska or manipulating the vote count in Georgia or imposing other kinds of impediments,” the politician told the news source. Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., also questioned whether Trump would win the election fair and square, telling Axios that she doesn’t know “what kind of shenanigans he is planning.”

Conservatives on Twitter pointed out the hypocrisy after the article was published. “I’ve been told this type of rhetoric is “dangerous to our democracy” or something,” @Patriot_Vibes wrote. Co-owner of Trending Politics, Colin Rugg, also mocked the Democrats who have been talking non-stop about Republicans and Trump’s alleged attempt to overthrow the government at the beginning of 2021. “The ‘democracy defenders’ won’t commit to certifying an election?” he wrote. Others wrote that the recent news is a warning from Democrats about their own insurrection, this time it being real and violent. Some conservatives noted that hearing about the recent news was not surprising after the Democrats replaced Joe Biden, who was elected by leftists during the primaries, with the current Democratic presidential candidate, Kamala Harris, who nobody cared about before the disastrous debate between Trump and Biden.

“No surprise there. They threw democracy out the window when they put Kamala in w/o a single vote. Why wouldn’t they pull some more shenanigans? We’ll get SCOTUS involved if we have to, but they need to do their job or GTFO,” an anonymous person wrote. The Democrats’ recent comments are also unsurprising because Raskin said he would never allow Trump to be in the White House again. “I’ve been warning of this for months. Here is Rep Jamie Raskin confirming what I’ve been predicting. Even if President Trump wins the 2024 election, Democrats will not accept the results and refuse to leave the White House, creating a civil war scenario,” investigative reporter and commentator Drew Hernandez said.

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Elias makes a lot of money. But I think the Steele dossier has tainted him too much to be effective.

“According to court records, Elias acted as a cutout for more than $1 million in campaign payments for the dossier..”

• Trump’s Toughest Foe Could Be Harris Lawyer Marc Elias (Sperry)

Elias later testified that he was worried – then as now – that Trump was a threat to democracy: “I received information that was troubling as someone who cares about democracy.” That “information” turned out to be a fictitious “dossier” linking Trump to the Kremlin crafted by former British spook and FBI informant Christopher Steele, who huddled with Elias in his Washington office. “Some of the information that was in it I think has actually proved true. It was accurate and important,” Elias testified in a closed-door hearing on Capitol Hill in December 2017, according to a declassified transcript. Actually, Steele’s allegations proved to be a collection of improbable rumors and fabricated allegations invented by Steele’s top researcher and a Clinton campaign adviser. Nonetheless, the disinformation was fed to the FBI and media, igniting criminal investigations (including illegal electronic surveillance), congressional probes, and a media frenzy that crippled Trump’s presidency with bad press for years.

In a parallel operation against Trump, Elias worked with his then-law partner Michael Sussmann and Clinton campaign officials – including Jake Sullivan, who is now President Biden’s national security adviser – to develop misleading evidence of a “secret hotline” between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin that allegedly used a “back channel” connection between email servers at Trump Tower and Russian-owned Alfa Bank. These false allegations were posted on social media and brought to the attention of the FBI, triggering a separate criminal investigation targeting Trump and his campaign. Like other Russiagate probes, it was eventually discredited. But the damage was done. By spreading fake Russian dirt on Trump, Elias was able to create scandals that dogged Trump for years, tarnishing his electability. The Democratic lawyer’s machinations, however, drew scrutiny from other investigators and hurt his own reputation – albeit temporarily.

During his probe of Russiagate, Special Counsel John Durham found Elias intentionally sought to conceal Clinton’s role in the dossier. According to court records, Elias acted as a cutout for more than $1 million in campaign payments for the dossier. By laundering its payments through a law firm, the Clinton campaign and Elias were able to claim attorney-client confidentiality when Durham sought their internal emails (the assertion of that privilege also blocked investigators from accessing communications between Elias and Steele’s immediate employer, the Washington-based opposition research firm, FusionGPS). But their shell game got the Clinton campaign in trouble with the Federal Election Commission, which later fined it and the Democratic National Committee $113,000 for misreporting the purpose of the payments as “legal expenses,” rather than opposition research, in violation of FEC laws.

The Durham probe, which Elias insists was “politically motivated,” nonetheless raised ethical issues with the D.C. Bar and Elias’ former law firm, Perkins Coie, reportedly leading to their breakup in August 2021, when Elias suddenly left the powerhouse after almost 30 years. The firm, which Elias had joined fresh out of law school in 1993, grew “increasingly uncomfortable” with the unwanted scrutiny the Durham probe invited on it, according to published reports. The veteran prosecutor exposed questionable billing practices by the firm. Durham also revealed the Democratic firm had set up an FBI workspace within its Washington offices, further calling into question the FBI’s impartiality in investigating Trump. In late 2021, Elias opened his own firm, the Elias Law Group, but soon lost major clients who reportedly grew weary of his aggressive tactics and go-it-alone style.

Last year, the DNC severed its 15-year relationship with Elias; then more recently, the Biden campaign parted company with him. In 2020, Elias had quarterbacked Biden’s legal team that fought Trump’s claims in court that the election had been stolen. He also beat back GOP measures to ensure election integrity after Democrats took advantage of the COVID-19 pandemic to dramatically loosen rules for voting – including allowing ballot harvesting, drop boxes, and ballots arriving up to four days after Election Day to still be counted. Top Democratic Party officials were said to sour on Elias after he filed election-related lawsuits without consulting with them, some of which backfired with unfavorable – and lasting – rulings. Biden’s team reportedly also became frustrated with his fees. Elias billed the DNC and Biden campaign more than $20 million during the 2020 election cycle.

But Elias has since taken on other clients – including Kamala Harris – who have more than made up for the loss in revenue. So far in this election cycle, the latest FEC filings show the Elias Law Group has received a total of more than $22 million in disbursements from a host of major Democratic and anti-Trump clients.

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It’s a war act. But there’s no war.

• Alien Enemies Act is Not a Viable Legal Basis for “Operation Aurora” (Turley)

In announcing his “Operation Aurora,” former President Donald Trump has suggested that he may use the Alien Enemies Act (AEA) of 1798 to crackdown on “every illegal migrant criminal network operating on American soil.” The plan to begin mass deportations is certainly popular with the public, according to polling. However, without a declaration of war, he will likely have to look to alternative statutory vehicles for a peacetime operation. This is not the first time that the Trump campaign has invoked the AEA. Last year, the campaign cited the law as giving it the power to “remove all known or suspected gang Members, drug dealers, or Cartel Members from the U.S.” The AEA has only been used three times and each time we were in a declared war: the War of 1812, World War I, and World War II. It is a law that became infamous in its use to put Japanese, German, and Italian civilians in internment camps during World War II. In DeLacey v. United States in 1918, the Ninth Circuit wrote that:

“The first reported case arising under the [AEA] is [by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in] Lockington’s Case [in 1814] … Lockington … had refused to comply with the executive order of February 23, 1813, requiring alien enemies who were within 40 miles of tidewater to retire to such places beyond that distance from tidewater as should be designated by the marshals. He was arrested, and on petition for habeas corpus attempted to test the legality of his imprisonment. Chief Justice Tilghman said of the [AEA]: “It is a provision for the public safety, which may require that the alien should not be removed, but kept in the country under proper restraints. … It is never to be forgotten that the main object of the law is to provide for the safety of the country from enemies who are suffered to remain within it. In order to effect this safety, it might be necessary to act on sudden emergencies. … The President, being best acquainted with the danger to be apprehended, is best able to judge of the emergency which might render such measures necessary. Accordingly, we find that the powers vested in him are expressed in the most comprehensive terms.”

The laws sweeping language makes it ripe for abuse. Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice Brackenridge in Lockington’s Case (1814) observed that under the AEA “the President would seem to be constituted, as to this description of persons, with the power of a Roman dictator or consul, in extraordinary cases, when the Republic was in danger, that it sustain no damage: ne quid detrimenti respublica capiat.” However, the AEA’s only limiting language is found in the triggering language for those powers: “Whenever there is a declared war between the United States and any foreign nation or government, or any invasion or predatory incursion is perpetrated, attempted, or threatened against the territory of the United States by any foreign nation or government, and the President makes public proclamation of the event…” In Ludecke v. Watkins, 335 U.S. 160 (1948), the Supreme Court held Justice Felix Frankfurter wrote a supportive decision of the presidential authority under the AEA on when the powers expired, but not when the powers begin:

“And so we reach the claim that, while the President had summary power under the Act, it did not survive cessation of actual hostilities. This claim in effect nullifies the power to deport alien enemies, for such deportations are hardly practicable during the pendency of what is colloquially known as the shooting war. Nor does law lag behind common sense. War does not cease with a cease-fire order, and power to be exercised by the President such as that conferred by the Act of 1798 is a process which begins when war is declared but is not exhausted when the shooting stops.” This broad granting of authority under the AEA is obviously a great attraction for presidents who have rarely hesitated to use the maximal levels of their powers. However, the threshold requirement of a declared war has proven the limiting element and it is telling that the law been used only three times by presidents.

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“Once a government has a monopoly on violence, the concept of public consent is meaningless..”

• Jon Stewart: Americans Don’t Need Guns To Protect Constitutional Rights (ZH)

Donald Trump’s recent return to Butler, PA where he was nearly assassinated due to Secret Service incompetence (or deliberate failure) has got the political left all worked up. Perhaps in part because Thomas Crooks failed to complete his task despite being given every conceivable opportunity to succeed, but also because Elon Musk was there to support the rally. Nothing Musk said was particularly shocking to normal Americans, but his comments on the necessity of the 2nd Amendment as a means to keep the 1st Amendment have outraged Democrats. Coastal progressives in particular have sought to disarm the rest of the nation for decades. Gun control and ultimately gun confiscation are foundational policies that their movement revolves around. The question is, why? Why are they so desperate to violate the Bill of Rights and take firearms away?

They certainly don’t care about people’s safety. If they did, they wouldn’t have cheered on the baseless and violent BLM and Antifa riots. Social media is replete with woke activists calling for the deaths of conservatives. These are not peaceful people seeking nirvana, they are happy to use violence if they think it will get them more power. This is a problem that old-school Democrats like Jon Stewart continue to enable while pretending it doesn’t exist. Stewart, clinging to cultural relevancy on his newly rebooted Daily Show, attempted to lampoon Elon Musk over his assertions on the 2A in Butler, but his strange diatribe about representative democracy is a retro callback to the 1990s and comes off as rather naive. Does Stewart really believe this nonsense? It’s hard to say, but the past few years have made his arguments obsolete.

The 1st Amendment is not protected by the “consent of the governed.” Americans just experienced a three year period of active censorship under the Biden Administration working closely with Big Tech and social media companies. Stewart shrugs off such censorship as if it’s overblown and doesn’t matter, but even Mark Zuckerberg admitted that Facebook was under pressure from the establishment to silence dissent on a number of issues from covid mandates to Hunter Biden’s laptop. Contrary to Stewart’s delusions about democracy, the reality is that the Constitution does not defend itself. According to polls a large number of Democrats desired the erasure of numerous rights during the covid scare. They don’t represent the majority, but there is more than enough of them to add weight to any authoritarian effort. And, the only thing stopping them from getting everything they want is the existence of millions of American gun owners.

It’s not as if the progressive/globalist establishment intends to give up, either. As John Kerry noted during a climate conference held by the WEF in September, their open intent is to shut down free speech rights regardless of the democratic process. If they could get rid of the 1st Amendment, they would. The only reason they haven’t is because the US government doesn’t have a monopoly on force. In Stewart’s fantasy land, a free Republic is a self perpetuating entity that continues on for eternity once it is set in motion, driven only by the goodness and purity of ideology and the voting process. But elections can be subverted by top-down corruption and the system has clearly been broken for some time. One only need to look at the malicious government crackdown on speech happening in the UK to see what happens when a population is disarmed.

There are examples of this across the globe, yet in the world of The Daily Show there is some kind of magical force embedded in “democracy” that protects the populace from abuse. To be sure, the act of violent rebellion is generally a last resort after all other measures have been exhausted. It’s just important to recognize that there’s always a breaking point and America is very close now. Stewart ironically contradicts his own premise when he claims guns “only protect the speech of the people holding the guns.” Yes Jon, that’s why the 2A exists, so that everyone’s speech is protected. Because a representative government can become a tyrannical government as easily as any other government. All it takes is time. The 2A ensures that the “consent of the governed” is never manufactured or forced without the threat of rebellion. Once a government has a monopoly on violence, the concept of public consent is meaningless and the elites will do as they please.

As Thomas Jefferson once wisely stated in reference to the potential for future citizen rebellion: “…What country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”

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WWIII as their legacy for Trump.

• Biden, Netanyahu Closer to Consensus on Attacking Iran (Antiwar)

President Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu moved closer to an understanding on Israel’s plans to attack Iran during their phone call on Wednesday, Axios reported on Thursday. The report, which cited US and Israeli officials, said that the US had accepted Israel is going to launch a major attack on Iran soon and is only concerned that striking certain types of targets could dramatically escalate things. However, Iran has vowed it will respond to any type of Israeli attack, and the situation could easily turn into a full-blown war that would involve the US. An Israeli official told Axios that the Israeli plans are still a bit more aggressive than the US would like. The US has been warning against striking nuclear facilities or oil infrastructure, and recent media reports have said Israel will likely target military infrastructure.

Netanyahu convened his security cabinet on Thursday to brief them on the situation with the US and is expected to get approval for him and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant to set a timeline for the Israeli attack. The Times of Israel reported that the US and Israel will continue conversations on the plans in the coming days, signaling the attack is not imminent. NBC News reported on Tuesday that the US was considering supporting Israel’s attack with direct airstrikes of its own, although US officials said intelligence support was more likely. The Jerusalem Post reported that the US was offering Israel a “compensation package” of military aid and full diplomatic support if it only hits US-approved targets in Iran. The US has also committed to defending Israel from any Iranian response.

Iran fired nearly 200 ballistic missiles at Israel last week in response to a string of Israeli escalations, including the assassination of Hamas’s political chief, Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran. Immediately after the attack, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said the US would work with Israel to ensure Iran suffers “severe consequences.”

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So noble.

• Biden Warns Iran Against Going After Trump – WaPo (RT)

US president Joe Biden has told the White House National Security Council to warn Iran against trying to assassinate Donald Trump, the Washington Post has reported. The message that the US president wanted to be relayed to Tehran was that Washington would treat any attempt on the life of his predecessor, or on that of any other former American official, as an act of war, the paper wrote on Friday. WaPo cited National Security Council spokesman Sean Savett, who insisted that Biden has directed “every resource” to make sure that the Republican Party nominee is well protected and that his security detail receives intelligence data in a timely manner about any dangers he might face. “We consider this a national and homeland security matter of the highest priority, and we strongly condemn Iran for these brazen threats,” Savett stated.

Tehran will face “severe consequences” if it attacks any American citizen, including people who “continue to serve the US or those who formerly served,” he stressed. Late last month, Trump claimed that there were “big threats” on his life, coming from Iran. He said that the two assassination attempts against him in recent months, at a rally in Pennsylvania in July then, in September, at his golf club in Florida, “may or may not involve” Tehran. WaPo, citing sources familiar with the matter, wrote that currently there is no evidence tying Tehran to either of the incidents. The former president’s statement came a day after his team announced that they had a meeting with representatives of US intelligence, who warned them about Tehran’s alleged plans to kill Trump and to “sow chaos” in the country.

Politico said on Friday that it had talked to dozens of officials, who claimed that Iran’s efforts to kill Trump, as well as persons involved in the assassination of top Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani, were “even more extensive and aggressive than previously reported.” Soleimani died in a US drone strike outside an airport in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, in January 2020, during Trump’s period in office, and Iran has promised that he would be avenged. However, after Trump was wounded in the ear in an assassination attempt on July 13, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani stressed that Tehran “strongly rejects” any suggestion that it was involved. “Iran is determined to pursue legal action against Trump for his direct role in the crime of assassinating Martyr General Qassem Soleimani,” Kanaani said.

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“About the notion that broadcast licenses should be up for bidding anew, Collins said: “If it causes a conversation in the halls of New York, and panic, maybe I’m all for it.”

• CBS News Faces Integrity Crisis Amid Bias Concerns, Missteps (JTN)

CBS News was once home to giants in the journalism industry. Walter Cronkite – known as “the most trusted man in America” – broadcast from a bomber in WWII on a mission over Germany. Edward R. Murrow changed investigative reporting forever with a 1960 documentary that is still taught in journalism schools today. And Mike Wallace could stir fear in the hearts of interview subjects with a simple phone call from his “60 Minutes” office. But today the news giant once heralded as the “Tiffany network” is blinking with crisis as the neutrality of its anchors is challenged and the integrity of editing at its most famous news magazine has been questioned. Many believe the storm of credibility was born two decades ago when then-Anchor Dan Rather’s supposed scoop on George W. Bush’s Vietnam war service factually crumbled, a miscue so embarrassing it sunk the 60 Minutes II franchise for good.

But a steady run of miscues and clashes in the era of Donald Trump and Middle East war has only inflamed the distrust – at least among conservatives – to scandalous levels and left a cloud lingering over the entire CBS News franchise. The most recent accusations of liberal bias exploded when CBS announced ahead of the vice presidential debate between Republican Sen. JD Vance and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the Democratic nominee, that its moderators would not “fact-check” the candidates’ answers. Instead, CBS moderators Norah O’Donnell and Margaret Brennan pulled a fast one, and several times argued with him about assertions. At one point when Vance answered their questions pushing back, they interrupted him and cut his mic off. In another event, The Free Press reported that a memo from Mark Memmott, the network’s director of standards and practices, told CBS reporters not to refer to Jerusalem as being in Israel, though it is the nation’s capital city and home to the U.S. embassy.

But perhaps the most politically incendiary incident, and the one that has Trump calling for CBS to lose its broadcast license, involved “60 Minutes” on Monday, when the network’s flagship news show was caught subbing one rambling answer from Vice President Kamala Harris for a more coherent one. “60 Minutes is a major part of the News Organization of CBS, which has just created the Greatest Fraud in Broadcast History,” Trump posted on social media after the Monday night show aired. “CBS should lose its license, and it should be bid out to the Highest Bidder, as should all other Broadcast Licenses, because they are just as corrupt as CBS — and maybe even WORSE!” The Harris interview was conducted by Bill Whitaker at the Naval Observatory over the weekend and an edited portion aired on “Face the Nation,” also a CBS show.

When Whittaker asked about U.S. diplomacy in Israel and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s reaction to the Biden administration’s desire to scale down the war against Hamas, Harris responded with: “Well, Bill, the work that we have done has resulted in a number of movements in that region by Israel that were very much prompted by or a result of many things, including our advocacy for what needs to happen in the region.” But when the question aired later on “60 Minutes,” the response by Harris was different. “We are not going to stop pursuing what is necessary for the United States to be clear about where we stand on the need for this war to end,” the presidential nominee said. In an additional social-media post by Trump, he said: “With me, 60 Minutes does the exact opposite! They take everything I say, realize how totally BRILLIANT it is, and take it out. So, with Kamala they add, with ‘TRUMP’ they delete. Like the Democrat Party, THEY ARE A THREAT TO DEMOCRACY!”

While progressive pundits quickly came to the defense of CBS, saying that edits for the sake of time and “concision” are common in news media, Trump’s assertion that broadcast licenses ought to be in play due to media bias is gaining traction among conservatives. “I want to hold these people responsible. We’re giving them FCC licenses. They don’t deserve them,” Arizona senatorial candidate Kari Lake said Thursday on the “Just the News, No Noise,” TV show with host John Solomon. Broadcast licenses are considered a shared “public common” after the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in Federal Communications Commission v. Pacifica Foundation, an obscenity case, that the federal government had jurisdiction to manage the airwaves.

Similarly, former Congressman Doug Collins, who has served as legal counsel for Trump, told co-host Amanda Head that some of Trump’s lawyers will be filing an FEC complaint claiming that CBS has been making in-kind political contributions to the Harris-Walz campaign. About the notion that broadcast licenses should be up for bidding anew, Collins said: “If it causes a conversation in the halls of New York, and panic, maybe I’m all for it.” Michael Whatley, the chair of the Republican National Committee, called the behavior of CBS “appalling” during the “John Solomon Reports” podcast Thursday. “CBS and 60 Minutes are lying to the American people about what was said and what was done in that interview,” Whatley said. “This is just the latest example that the media is absolutely not going to play it straight.” Noting the rise of alternative media and falling ratings for broadcast news shows, he added: “There is a reckoning that is taking place with the mainstream, traditional media outlets that’s long overdue.”

Falling ratings are a long-term problem and has caused layoffs – and O’Donnell took a pay cut in 2022 to $3.8 million annually, down from $8 million previously – but as recently as four years ago the vice presidential debate between Harris and then-Vice President Mike Pence, scored 25 percent more viewers than did last month’s Vance-Walz debate. Another problem faced by CBS is its decision in February to lay off senior investigative correspondent Catherine Herridge after she reported stories that irritated progressive activists, including some involving the Hunter Biden laptop scandal. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, has launched an investigation into Herridge’s termination.

Herridge went on to say that when she interviewed then-President Trump in 2020, CBS News posted the entire interview transcript. And on Wednesday, Herridge weighed in on the “60 Minutes” fiasco, posting on the X social-media platform: “As Trump campaign calls on @60Minutes to release ‘full, unedited transcript’ of Kamala Harris interview … there is precedent.” The New York Post quoted unnamed sources as saying that “Herridge had pushed for the publication of her full transcript at the time and that it was a “special case.” “It’s about transparency and standing behind the integrity of the final edit,” Herridge posted Wednesday.

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How on earth can you hold a free and fair election under such rules?

• 3 Million Non-Citizens Have Texas Driver’s Licenses Allowed As Voter ID (JTN)

Texas GOP Rep. Chip Roy and state Rep. Brian Harrison, R, said that the Texas Department of Public Safety has confirmed there are nearly 3 million non-citizens with driver’s licenses in the state that secretary of state has allowed for use as voter ID. The announcement on Thursday came after an Tuesday advisory by the Texas secretary of state’s elections director, Christina Worrell Adkins, which states that while non-citizen driver’s licenses are not acceptable as voter ID, they can be used if the person is already a registered voter. “BREAKING: according to [Texas Department of Public Safety] – 2,824,613 non-citizens have DL’s, CDL’s, or ID – after working with my friend [Brian Harrison] to run this to ground. That’s why this matters – a lot,” Roy posted on X on Thursday as he shared his earlier post with a Texas Scorecard article about non-citizens using driver’s licenses as voter ID.

“Almost 3 million non-citizens have been issued driver licenses, CDLs, or IDs in Texas,” Harrison wrote Thursday as he shared Roy’s post on X. “The Secretary of State’s office is instructing poll workers to give ballots to people with non-citizen driver licenses. [Chip Roy] is right: ‘this matters a lot.’ Developing..” The secretary of state’s advisory explains that only U.S. citizens are permitted to register to vote and cast ballots in Texas. However, the guidance also states that a person with a non-citizen driver’s license or identification card can vote if they are listed on the voter rolls. If the person is not on the voter rolls and has a non-citizen driver’s license or ID, then they may still vote by provisional ballot.

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Fill up the voter rolls with illegals well in advance and no-one can take them off less than 90 days before the election.

• DOJ Sues Virginia Over Removing Non-Citizens From Voter Rolls (JTN)

The Department of Justice has sued Virginia over removing non-citizens from its voter rolls ahead of the November election. The DOJ announced the suit Friday against the Commonwealth of Virginia, the Virginia State Board of Elections, and the Virginia Commissioner of Elections for allegedly violating the National Voter Registration Act of 1993. The NVRA prevents states from using systematic programs to remove ineligible voters from voter rolls within 90 days of a federal election, according to the DOJ. “As the National Voter Registration Act mandates, officials across the country should take heed of the law’s crystal clear and unequivocal restrictions on systematic list maintenance efforts that fall within 90 days of an election,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke said in a statement. “By cancelling voter registrations within 90 days of Election Day, Virginia places qualified voters in jeopardy of being removed from the rolls and creates the risk of confusion for the electorate.

Congress adopted the National Voter Registration Act’s quiet period restriction to prevent error-prone, eleventh hour efforts that all too often disenfranchise qualified voters,” she added. “The right to vote is the cornerstone of our democracy and the Justice Department will continue to ensure that the rights of qualified voters are protected.” Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) slammed the DOJ over the litigation. “With less than 30 days until the election, the Biden-Harris Department of Justice is filing an unprecedented lawsuit against me and the Commonwealth of Virginia, for appropriately enforcing a 2006 law signed by Democrat Tim Kaine that requires Virginia to remove noncitizens from the voter rolls – a process that starts with someone declaring themselves a non-citizen and then registering to vote,” Youngkin said in a statement Friday.

“Virginians – and Americans – will see this for exactly what it is: a desperate attempt to attack the legitimacy of the elections in the Commonwealth, the very crucible of American Democracy. With the support of our Attorney General, we will defend these commonsense steps, that we are legally required to take, with every resource available to us. Virginia’s election will be secure and fair, and I will not stand idly by as this politically motivated action tries to interfere in our elections, period.” The DOJ lawsuit come two weeks after the department sued Alabama for removing ineligible voters from its voter rolls.

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“..the main goal of Russian diplomacy is now “crisis management and the prevention of… a truly large-scale conflict.”

• NATO Could Have Prevented Ukraine Conflict – Hungary FM (RT)

The current standoff between Russia and the West could have been avoided if NATO and the US had engaged in serious talks on Moscow’s demand for security guarantees, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto has argued. In December 2021, two months before Russia launched its military operation in Ukraine, it submitted a list of security proposals to NATO and the US, insisting that the bloc withdraw its military infrastructure to the 1997 borders. The key point of the document was to halt NATO’s expansion, particularly regarding Ukraine, which has long sought to join the military bloc. However, the bloc rejected the proposal, citing its “open-door policy” on new members. Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that one of the key reasons for the conflict was the threat of Kiev’s potential NATO membership.

In an interview with RIA Novosti on Saturday, Szijjarto suggested that the Russian terms could have served as a basis for avoiding the Ukraine conflict. “I remember those times. I think that what was missing there was a serious discussion… I do believe that if someone has an issue… then it should be discussed. And these discussions have not taken place, unfortunately,” the diplomat said. Szijjarto acknowledged that any debate on what might have happened is now moot, but stressed that he wishes “those dialogues had taken place. Because if they had taken place, we might not be in the situation we are right now.” In May, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said Moscow’s proposal on security guarantees was no longer on the table, and that the main goal of Russian diplomacy is now “crisis management and the prevention of… a truly large-scale conflict.”

Szijjarto, along with other top Hungarian officials, have repeatedly criticized the West’s approach to the Ukraine crisis, calling on both sides to reach a ceasefire and start peace talks. He has also blasted Western sanctions against Moscow as ineffective and crippling the EU economy. Russia has never ruled out talks on Ukraine, and Putin said in June that Moscow would immediately agree to a ceasefire and start peace talks if Kiev were to withdraw troops from the Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson and Zaporozhye Regions and commit to neutrality. Later, he said that any engagement was out of the question as long as Ukrainian troops occupy part of Russia’s Kursk Region.

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“..options for fighting Russia are being continuously worked out within the bloc, military budgets of member states are being boosted, and Western economies are being militarized..”

• NATO Planning New Russia Strategy – Politico (RT)

NATO’s defense ministers will meet in Brussels next week to start rethinking the bloc’s decades-old strategy on relations with Russia, Politico has reported Despite ties between NATO and Russia hitting “rock bottom” after the outbreak of the Ukraine conflict in February 2022, the ‘Founding Act’ with Moscow remains in force within the US-led alliance, the outlet noted in an article on Friday. The 1997 document, which states that NATO and Russia share a common goal to “build a stable, peaceful and undivided Europe,” does not reflect the current situation, Politico wrote. During its summit in Washington in July, NATO labeled Moscow the “most significant and direct threat to Allies’ security,” while Russia continues to insist that the bloc’s eastward expansion is an “existential danger” for the country.

NATO countries are now trying to “map out different elements of [the Russia] strategy and advance the debates inside the alliance that takes us to subjects like the future of the NATO-Russia Founding Act,” a senior US official was quoted by Politico as saying. “It is time to now craft a new strategy in terms of specific positions” of the member states, the official added. Lower-level discussions on the new Russia policy have been underway for months within the bloc, and next week the issue will be addressed at the ministerial level, the report said. NATO previously announced that it planned to formulate a new strategy before its summit in The Hague, to be held next summer. “Right now we have to have an understanding across the alliance… that the [Founding Act] and the NATO-Russia Council were built for a different era, and I think the allies are prepared to say that was a different era in our relationship with Russia, and therefore something new is merited,” the US official explained.

The official described the strategy as a “political exercise,” adding that its military implications are expected to be “limited.” According to Politico, there are differences among members when it comes to the new policy towards Moscow, as some are concerned that an overly aggressive “signal” could “destabilize” Russia. There are also questions over Hungary and Slovakia, which see “strategic value” in engaging with Moscow, despite being NATO members, it added. Earlier this week, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Aleksandr Grushko said NATO is no longer hiding the fact that it is bracing for a potential military conflict with Moscow. Possible options for fighting Russia are being continuously worked out within the bloc, military budgets of member states are being boosted, and Western economies are being militarized, he said. It was not Russia but NATO that took “the path of confrontation” by refusing to engage in dialogue, Grushko insisted. Because of this, the US-led bloc bears full responsibility for a “major European security crisis” caused by the Ukraine conflict, he added.

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“We reset our workforce levels to align with our financial reality and to a more focused set of priorities..”

• Boeing To Fire 17,000 Employees (RT)

The US manufacturer Boeing has announced plans to eliminate around 10% of its workforce over the coming months, as the aerospace giant’s losses continue to mount and a strike undercuts the production of its best-selling planes. The job cuts will include executives and managers in addition to ordinary employees, according to a memo shared by the company’s new president and CEO Kelly Ortberg on Friday. The corporation employs nearly 170,000 people worldwide. “Our business is in a difficult position, and it is hard to overstate the challenges we face together,” said Ortberg, who became CEO of the troubled aircraft maker two months ago. A month after he took the helm, 33,000 hourly workers went on strike. “We reset our workforce levels to align with our financial reality and to a more focused set of priorities,” he added.

The “tough” decision is aimed at completing structural changes that will ensure the company’s ability to stay competitive and execute the customers’ orders over the long term, the CEO emphasized. Ortberg added that Boeing is also delaying its program to develop the 777X airplane until 2026 and halting production of its commercial 767 freighters in 2027 after fulfilling remaining orders. Earlier this week, Boeing said it had filed an unfair labor practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board against the union that represents its striking West Coast factory workers. The company emphasized that the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers had failed to bargain in good faith during the four-week work stoppage, adding that it was “issuing misinformation to its members about the status of negotiations.”

The company earlier withdrew a contract offer it had made to the striking machinists, saying that further negotiations “do not make sense at this point.” The union had previously stated that Boeing had refused to improve wages, retirement plans and vacation or sick leave. In a preliminary report on the financial results issued on Friday, the corporation said it expects to have an operating cash outflow of $1.3 billion in the third quarter, and that it will report a loss of $9.97 per share.

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Maher

 

 

Phone frogs

 

 

Material girl

 

 

Voila
https://twitter.com/i/status/1844929481615790263

 

 

 

 

Support the Automatic Earth in wartime with Paypal, Bitcoin and Patreon.

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle September 27 2024

Sep 272024
 
 September 27, 2024  Posted by at 8:50 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  59 Responses »


Pablo Picasso The bathers 1918

 

• Ukraine ‘Is Gone’ – Trump (RT)
• Trump Agrees To Meet Zelensky (RT)
• Trump Pushes Narrative That Iran Is Trying to Kill Him (Antiwar)
• US Doesn’t Want Ukraine In NATO – Erdogan (RT)
• Biden Behind Nord Stream Sabotage – Russia’s Top MP (RT)
• NATO Outlines Plans In Event Of War With Russia (RT)
• Biden Drains Remaining Ukraine Aid Funds (RT)
• US Congress ‘Happy to Be Lied to’ in Service of American Imperialism (Sp.)
• Moderator for VP Debate Tied to Donations for ‘Lincoln Project’ (HUSA)
• Former CDC Director Robert Redfield Praises “Make America Healthy Again” (ZH)
• The Assault on America’s Defining Principles (Turley)
• What Happens if We Hold College and Nobody Comes? (Turley)
• Taxes and Tariffs and Trade: Trump’s Plan To Bolster The Economy (JTN)
• FBI Claims it Doesn’t Have DNC’s Jan. 6 Pipe Bomb Footage (HUSA)
• Appeals Court Seems Skeptical of New York Civil Fraud Suit Against Trump (ET)
• FBI Specialist Urges Americans to Prepare For Hardship (MN)
• Boeing Machinists on Strike Have a Historic Opportunity (Sawant)

 

 

 

 

Trump ad

 

 

Melania

 

 

Holistically


https://twitter.com/i/status/1839095068537532889

Bidenomics

 

 

Rogan Chamath

 

 

Eric Adams
https://twitter.com/i/status/1839436032888221900

 

 

Bug
https://twitter.com/i/status/1839019582985744422

 

 

RFK food

 

 

Loverboy

 

 

Ballots
https://twitter.com/i/status/1838887620253728832

 

 

USB stick

 

 

 

 

“Millions and millions of people, including all of these great soldiers, they’re dead. Those gorgeous buildings with golden towers are demolished and lying broken on their side. Ukraine is gone. It’s not Ukraine anymore. You can never replace those cities and towns.”

• Ukraine ‘Is Gone’ – Trump (RT)

Former US President Donald Trump has hammered Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky for refusing to negotiate with Russia, arguing that the country is now “obliterated” while Kiev is reduced to sending “young children and old men” to the front lines amid its conflict with Moscow. Zelensky is currently visiting the US to attend the UN General Assembly in New York and pitch his so-called ‘victory plan’ to key figures in President Joe Biden’s administration. Republican lawmakers, however, have condemned Zelensky for publicly criticizing Trump and his running mate, J.D. Vance. He incited further ire among Republicans when he appeared at an event at a munitions plant organized by Pennsylvania Governor Joshua Shapiro, a key ally of Trump’s Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris.

At a rally in North Carolina on Thursday, Trump accused Zelensky of “making little nasty aspersions” toward him, before turning to the Ukrainian leader’s handling of the conflict with Russia. “The country is absolutely obliterated,” he declared. “Millions and millions of people, including all of these great soldiers, they’re dead. Those gorgeous buildings with golden towers are demolished and lying broken on their side. Ukraine is gone. It’s not Ukraine anymore. You can never replace those cities and towns.” “And Biden and Kamala allowed this to happen by feeding Zelensky money and munitions like no country has ever seen before,” he continued. “But now Ukraine is running out of soldiers. They’re using young children and old men because their soldiers are dying.”

While the Ukrainian military does not publish casualty figures, the Russian Defense Ministry has estimated Kiev’s losses at around half a million men. Ukraine’s manpower shortage has been well documented by Western media outlets, and the country’s top general acknowledged earlier this month that recruits are often sent to fight after as little as six weeks’ training. Trump argued that Biden and Harris could have “easily” struck a deal with Russia to prevent the conflict from ever starting. Instead, through “a lot of bad statements and stupid statements,” Biden “egged it on.” “And we continue to give billions of dollars to a man who refuses to make a deal,” Trump said, referring to Zelensky. “Any deal, even the worst deal, would have been better than what we have right now.”

Russia and Ukraine reportedly agreed to a peace deal during talks in Istanbul in 2022. The agreement would have involved Ukraine declaring military neutrality, limiting its armed forces, and vowing not to discriminate against ethnic Russians. In return, Moscow would have joined other leading powers in offering Ukraine security guarantees. However, Zelensky withdrew from the talks at the last moment. According to Ukrainian negotiator David Arakhamia, former US Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, and several Ukrainian media reports, the US and UK were instrumental in convincing Zelensky to abandon negotiations. Trump maintains that he would settle the conflict “in 24 hours” if elected president this November. Zelensky, however, has stated that the former president “doesn’t really know how to stop the war,” while Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said that he doesn’t “think there is a magic wand” that can stop the fighting overnight.

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“Any deal, even the worst deal, would have been better than what we have right now.”

• Trump Agrees To Meet Zelensky (RT)

US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has announced he will meet with Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky on Friday in New York. Zelensky has met with President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, who is the Democrats’ candidate for the presidency in the November election. He has also sought a meeting with Trump. “I will be meeting with him tomorrow morning at around 9:45 at Trump Tower,” the former and possibly future US president announced at a press conference in New York City on Thursday afternoon. Earlier in the day, Trump had posted a message from Ukraine’s deputy ambassador to the US, relaying Zelensky’s request for a meeting, to his TruthSocial platform. “Dear Donald, I hope you’re doing well. I recall our recent phone call – it was really good,” Zelensky wrote. “All of us in Ukraine want to end this war with a just peace. And we know that without America this is impossible to achieve.

That’s why we have to strive to understand each other and remain in close contact.” “You know I always speak with great respect about everything connected to you, and that’s how it should be,” the Ukrainian actor-turned-politician wrote, adding that he would “really like for our meeting to take place.” The request came after Trump criticized the “little nasty aspersions” Zelensky had made about him and his running mate, Ohio Senator JD Vance, in an interview published last Sunday. At a campaign rally in North Carolina, Trump described Ukraine as “absolutely obliterated” and accused Biden and Harris of “feeding Zelensky money and munitions like no country has ever seen before.” “We continue to give billions of dollars to a man who refuses to make a deal,” Trump said, referring to Zelensky. “Any deal, even the worst deal, would have been better than what we have right now.”

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Not a very high level of credibility. Who feeds him this? Warmongers?!

• Trump Pushes Narrative That Iran Is Trying to Kill Him (Antiwar)

On Wednesday, former President Donald Trump pushed a narrative being spread by US intelligence officials that Iran is trying to kill him even though there’s no evidence of Iranian involvement in either attempt on his life. Trump’s campaign said they were briefed on the alleged Iranian threat by officials from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which is led by Avril Haines. “Big threats on my life by Iran. The entire US Military is watching and waiting. Moves were already made by Iran that didn’t work out, but they will try again,” Trump wrote on X after the briefing. “Not a good situation for anyone. I am surrounded by more men, guns, and weapons than I have ever seen before.” The claim that Iran is plotting to kill Trump was first made by a CNN report back in July, following the assassination attempt by Thomas Matthew Crooks, who was shot and killed by the Secret Service.

The report acknowledged there was no evidence Crooks was linked to Iran, which was reaffirmed on Tuesday by intelligence officials speaking to The New York Times, who stressed there was no Iran connection to the July shooting. The Times report also said there was no evidence that Iran was connected in any way to Ryan Routh, who was arrested on September 15 and recently charged with attempting to assassinate Trump. Routh is a staunch supporter of the Ukraine proxy war and traveled to the country to help recruit fighters for the Ukrainian foreign legion. Despite the lack of evidence, Trump suggested at a campaign event on Wednesday that Iran might have been involved in the two assassination attempts. “As you know, there have been two assassination attempts on my life that we know of, and they may or may not involve – but possibly do – Iran,” he said at an event in North Carolina.

“If I were the president, I would inform the threatening country, in this case Iran, that if you do anything to harm this person, we are going to blow your largest cities and the country itself to smithereens,” Trump added. The claims about Iran come amid soaring tensions in the Middle East as Israel has dramatically escalated its bombing campaign in Lebanon, a situation that could potentially turn into a full-blown war between the US and Iran. But Iran’s actions over the past year have shown they’re not interested in war with the US. For example, when Iran launched a reprisal attack on Israel in response to the bombing of the Iranian consulate in Syria, Iranian officials said they warned the US 72 hours in advance. The US denied the claim, but Turkey and Jordan confirmed they were given notice, which would have gotten back to the US. Iran and the US also engaged in indirect negotiations in Oman to avoid escalation.

Iran’s new president, Masoud Peseshkian, has also taken an extremely diplomatic tone toward the US since coming into office and wants direct negotiations with Washington. “We are not hostile towards the US. They should end their hostility towards us by showing their goodwill in practice,” Pezeshkian said last week. “We are brothers with the Americans as well.” Members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) occasionally vow they will take revenge for Trump’s assassination of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who headed the IRGC’s Quds Force. But in response to recent allegations, Iran has said Trump should be punished for the killing in a court of law. “These accusations are unsubstantiated and malicious,” Iran’s mission to the UN said in response to the CNN report in July. “From the perspective of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Trump is a criminal who must be prosecuted and punished in a court of law for ordering the assassination of General Soleimani. Iran has chosen the legal path to bring him to justice.”

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“..the US, first and foremost, does not want to see Ukraine as a NATO member. And many NATO countries do not want Ukraine to be a member-state.”

• US Doesn’t Want Ukraine In NATO – Erdogan (RT)

The US is the main opponent of Ukraine joining NATO, although many other countries in the bloc are also against Kiev’s potential membership, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said. While Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky’s so-called ‘victory plan’ stresses NATO accession, Erdogan told NBC News on Wednesday that “the US, first and foremost, does not want to see Ukraine as a NATO member. And many NATO countries do not want Ukraine to be a member-state.” Zelensky is currently in the US, where is he promoting the plan and is scheduled to meet with President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris in Washington on Thursday. “These are not questions to be rushed,” he added. “And when making our minds, when we are taking our decisions, we always take into consideration the stance of other NATO member states, we discuss those possible questions around the table and make the final decision accordingly,” Erdogan stated.

When asked directly if Ankara would accept Ukraine in NATO, Erdogan replied that “we are going to follow the developments, the deliberations, and reach a final decision accordingly. These are not decisions to be rushed in an excited way.” He also spoke about Türkiye’s ties with Russia, describing them as “multidimensional, political, economic, cultural, defense industry related. There are many dimensions, dimensions there and our solidarity, our interaction, has been going on and economically every day, these relations are expanding.” A unanimous decision by all members is required to expand NATO. Finland and Sweden, who became the latest nations to join the bloc in 2023 and 2024 respectively, had to overcome strong initial opposition from Türkiye, which accused them of harboring members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), considered a terrorist group by Ankara.

A senior US State Department official told AP on Tuesday that the political element of Zelensky’s ‘victory plan’ focuses on how to assure the Ukrainian population that they will be welcomed into Western institutions such as the EU and NATO, assuming they continue to fight Russia or if a negotiated settlement with Moscow is achieved. NATO declared at a 2008 summit in Bucharest that Ukraine, along with another former Soviet Republic, Georgia, would join the US-led bloc at some stage. After the conflict between Russia and Ukraine broke out, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and other officials repeatedly claimed that Kiev was on track to becoming a member, but never announced a specific timeline for accession. Moscow, which views NATO as hostile and vigorously opposes its eastward expansion, highlighted Kiev’s aspirations of joining the bloc as among the main reasons for launching its military operation against Ukraine in February 2022.

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Yet another narrative (retelling) pops up: “..a privately-funded operation masterminded by a now-disgraced Ukrainian intelligence officer..”

• Biden Behind Nord Stream Sabotage – Russia’s Top MP (RT)

US President Joe Biden “was behind” the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines, and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz helped him tank his country’s economy in the aftermath, Vyacheslav Volodin, the head of the Russian State Duma, has claimed. The senior legislator commented on Thursday on the second anniversary of the explosions, which disabled the undersea connectors built to deliver Russian natural gas directly to Germany, noting the failure of European investigators to name the culprit. There have been accounts in the media suggesting possible scenarios, “which were occasionally laughable,” he said. “Washington and Biden personally were behind the Nord Stream bombing. His interest was to cut Western Europe off from cheap Russian gas and force it to buy it from America at a price three times higher,” he said.

The German economy took a hit and is now in recession due to a loss of competitiveness, Volodin added, “which means that the people of Germany were punished instead of Washington, as Biden and Scholz took money out of their pockets.” “You cannot pin this one on some ‘pro-Ukrainian group’ and civilian divers,” Volodin stressed. On Tuesday, the German news outlet Der Spiegel published its latest retelling of the events of September 2022. It mostly repeats the story that a privately-funded operation masterminded by a now-disgraced Ukrainian intelligence officer conducted the sabotage with the blessing of former General Valery Zaluzhny. The Western press has been repeating similar versions of this story for months. Spiegel claimed to have identified the divers, saying that most were civilians, but the group was led by a commando.

The operation was first contemplated years before the outbreak of hostilities between Russia and Ukraine in February 2022, it stated. Pulitzer Prize-winning US investigative journalist Seymour Hersh alleged that Biden had ordered the sabotage of Nord Stream in a February 2023 article. He said US military divers had secretly planted explosives to destroy the pipelines at a significant depth, using a NATO exercise in the Baltic Sea as a cover. The White House has denied the accusations, but Russian officials have called the story plausible. Prior to the destruction of Nord Stream 1 and 2, senior US officials, including Biden, had issued threats to destroy the Russian-German pipelines.

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They’re trying to sell a story: “..a large number of frontline casualties without the capability to airlift them for treatment..”

• NATO Outlines Plans In Event Of War With Russia (RT)

NATO would have to deal with a large number of frontline casualties without the capability to airlift them for treatment in the event of a major war with Russia, its logistics chief has said. Lieutenant-General Alexander Sollfrank, the head of NATO’s Joint Support and Enabling Command (JSEC), outlined the difficulties that troops would face in an interview with Reuters on Wednesday. “The challenge will be to swiftly ensure high-quality care for, in the worst case, a great number of wounded,” Sollfrank said. The environment of a hypothetical conflict with Russia would be completely different from what the US and its allies faced in Afghanistan and Iraq, he added. Unlike insurgents in the Middle East, Russia has the military capability to threaten NATO aircraft, Sollfrank noted, predicting that medical evacuations would have to be conducted on the ground.

“For planning reasons, all options to take a great number of wounded to medical installations need to be considered, which includes trains but potentially also buses,” the NATO official said. Ukraine is currently using hospital trains to evacuate injured troops from the front line, as reported by CNN earlier this month. The NATO logistics command, which is based in the southern German town of Ulm, recently staged an exercise based on coordinating medical evacuations, Reuters said. JSEC contingency plans would require a legal foundation for issues such as the expedited transportation of narcotics across national borders, Sollfrank said. He also called for a ‘military medical Schengen’ – similarly to how the bloc needs a ‘military Schengen’ to rapidly deploy troops and weapons to the eastern flank, according to the official.

The US and its allies have claimed that Russia may be planning to attack NATO, and that the West can delay or prevent that outcome by arming Ukraine. The bloc has been expanding in Europe for decades, in violation of assurances given before Moscow agreed to German reunification in 1990. The Russian government has cited NATO’s approach to its borders and the bloc’s intention to add Kiev to its ranks as key causes of the Ukraine conflict. Officials in Moscow have denied having any aggressive intentions toward NATO, which they consider a hostile force that must be deterred.

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“The mechanisms allow payments to arms manufacturers and permit weapons to be drawn directly from American military stockpiles..”

• Biden Drains Remaining Ukraine Aid Funds (RT)

US President Joe Biden announced nearly $8 billion in military aid to Ukraine on Thursday, releasing the remaining funding authorized by Congress. Lawmakers recently declined to extend the availability of certain funds beyond next week’s deadline. The funding includes $2.4 billion under the Pentagon’s Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative and $5.5 billion under the Presidential Drawdown Authority (PDA). The mechanisms allow payments to arms manufacturers and permit weapons to be drawn directly from American military stockpiles. The latter sum was set to expire at the end of this month, which marks the end of the fiscal year in the US. The White House had hoped that the US Congress would allow the PDA money to be spent at a later point. However, legislation passed on Wednesday did not include any such clause, reportedly following resistance from Republicans skeptical of the continued bankrolling of Kiev.

Biden announced the decision on military aid during a meeting with Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky, who is in the US to promote his ‘victory plan’ in the conflict with Russia. Zelensky has said he wanted the US president to be the first to see the proposal as it heavily relies on American aid. According to the Wall Street Journal, US officials have previewed the plan but found it “unimpressive.” The US president said Kiev will receive an additional Patriot surface-to-air system, more munitions and drones, as well as a new capability, the AGM-154 Joint Standoff Weapon (JSOW). The glide bomb has a range of up to 130km when dropped from a high-flying aircraft. Some supporters of Kiev’s cause have criticized the 11th-hour drawdown of funds by Biden. Senator Roger Wicker, a Republican from Missouri, claimed it was “typical of this administration to wait until the last possible moment to announce full use of the PDA.”

Zelensky’s visit also triggered complaints from members of the GOP, after he criticized the Republican presidential ticket and visited an ammunition factory in the battleground state of Pennsylvania, without a single Republican official present. Senior party members have accused the Ukrainian leader of campaigning for the Democrats. They also alleged that the Biden administration facilitated potential meddling in the 2024 presidential election by organizing Zelensky’s Pennsylvania visit and spending taxpayer money on it.

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“..most of Congress was very happy to be lied to and would have denounced Blinken for the truth.”

• US Congress ‘Happy to Be Lied to’ in Service of American Imperialism (Sp.)

Secretary of State Antony Blinken is facing calls to resign after a damning report suggested he willfully misled Congress to keep US military aid flowing to Israel. Analysis by the investigative reporting nonprofit ProPublica revealed that Blinken defied the findings of multiple government bodies that concluded Israel was deliberately blocking humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip. Blinken ignored the advice of multiple officials with the State Department and US Agency for International Development (USAID), testifying before lawmakers that Tel Aviv was not interfering with the flow of aid. US law forbids the provision of military equipment to any country obstructing American humanitarian assistance. Journalists Dan Lazare and Robert Fantina joined Sputnik’s The Critical Hour program Wednesday to discuss the scandal, which has led the director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations to call on Blinken to resign.

“This is business as usual,” said Fantina. “The United States doesn’t respect international law and doesn’t respect its own laws if those laws somehow get in the way of its quest for power and profits. So the fact that Blinken lied to Congress, blatantly lied – and this wasn’t something that was inconsequential, this caused the starvation, the continued starvation and the slaughter of innocent people.” “We’ve said before that the United States is enabling this genocide by continuing to arm Israel and by increasing its arms shipments to Israel,” he continued. “So the fact that Blinken is lying should really surprise no one. Other international organizations that aren’t affiliated with any nation have said repeatedly for months that Israel is blocking humanitarian aid. And yet the United States denies this, or at least Blinken did.”

The human rights organization Amnesty International affirmed Israel was stemming the flow of humanitarian assistance earlier this year, characterizing Tel Aviv’s actions as a “tightening” of its “16-year-long suffocating blockade” of Gaza. Israel has tightly controlled the amount of food and other basic necessities allowed to enter the Palestinian territory since June 2007, when it decided to dismantle its settlements in the Gaza Strip. However, Israel has exerted control over the strip of land, which is considered sovereign Palestinian territory under international law, since 1967, when it seized land intended to form the basis of a Palestinian state in the region. The US has served as the country’s strongest backer in the decades since, with Israel becoming the United States’ largest cumulative recipient of foreign aid. Observers claim the US backs the country as a crucial beachhead in a geopolitically vital region where Israel serves as a proxy for US interests against Iran and other adversaries.

“Israel is engaged in a brutal war, which is now spreading dramatically and it will continue doing so,” said Lazare, claiming Israel is inarguably using the flow of humanitarian aid as an instrument of war. “It’s all irrelevant. I mean, war is the cessation of law, and, therefore, calling on warmakers to obey the law strikes me as kind of contradictory.” “If you’re acting on behalf of the [US] government or any kind of imperialism, you are free to lie to Congress at will, the laws against lying to Congress only apply to those which the empire sees as a threat,” posited host Garland Nixon. “Congress does not mind being lied to if it thinks it benefits the empire,” Lazare agreed. “In general there are lies Congress likes and lies Congress doesn’t like. And, therefore, it’s Congress’ power of decision, power to decide which lies are okay and which lies are not. And generally the okay ones are those that further America’s imperial ambitions.” Sam Perlo-Freeman, a researcher with the group Campaign Against Arms Trade, agreed, claiming simply, “most of Congress was very happy to be lied to and would have denounced Blinken for the truth.”

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“..it quickly became clear that some of its members were growing increasingly unhinged with Trump Derangement Syndrome.”

• Moderator for VP Debate Tied to Donations for ‘Lincoln Project’ (HUSA)

The husband of one of the two moderators in next week’s CBS News debate featuring vice presidential candidates J.D. Vance and Tim Walz appears to have made two donations of $250 apiece to the controversial Lincoln Project during the 2020 election. Records from the Federal Election Commission show that Ali “Yado” Yakub, the husband of Face the Nation host Margaret Brennan, contributed on July 2 and Sept. 26 of that year to the anti-Trump super-PAC. Voting records confirmed that the address listed was the residence of Yakub, who was registered as a Republican, and Brennan, who was registered as an independent.Many have observed that registration offers no indication about political preference, with Democrats during the recent primary—in which President Joe Biden ran largely uncontested—frequently changing their party identification to vote against Trump.

Yakub also made contributions to ActBlue in 2019, including two that were earmarked for the primary campaign of future Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. Headline USA reached out to both Brennan and Yakub by phone and email but received no response. The Lincoln Project—founded by high-profile NeverTrump ex-Republicans Rick Wilson, George T. Conway III, Steve Schmidt, Reed Galen, John Weaver and Jennifer Horn—initially appeared to be a sort of principled response by members of the GOP establishment to Trump’s takeover of the party. However, it quickly became clear that some of its members were growing increasingly unhinged with Trump Derangement Syndrome.

The group lost all credibility when, in January 2021, allegations emerged that co-founder John Weaver had engaged in sexual impropriety with young, male staffers and had allegedly solicited boys as young as 14. The bombshell led to an exodus of the group’s more influential figures, such as former John McCain campaign chief Steve Schmidt, who had become a registered Democrat the month prior. Only two of its charter members—Rick Wilson and Reed Galen—are currently associated with the group, which has grown more radical and outlandish, notoriously engaging in a stunt in which it staged a fake neo-Nazi rally and attempted to blame Trump supporters.

It also has run ads pushing blatant disinformation, such as attempting to suggest that Trump would monitor and arrest people for attempting to obtain an abortion. Trump has repeatedly emphasized that the issue is now at the state level and will remain so if he is re-elected, while noting that he personally favors exceptions for abortions in a set of specific, narrowly tailored circumstances. Moreover, the Lincoln Project has sought to falsely tie Trump to the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, which he has repeatedly disavowed and denied any association with. The project launched in April 2023, well before Trump was the presumptive nominee, and was designed as a series of policy proposals for use by whichever candidate prevailed.

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“Maybe it was a warning sign when big pharma and the feds pushed Ozempic as the ‘wonder shot’ to end the obesity crisis..”

• Former CDC Director Robert Redfield Praises “Make America Healthy Again” (ZH)

Former CDC Director Robert Redfield, who served during the Trump administration, wrote an editorial in Newsweek praising President Trump’s decision to join forces with Robert Kennedy Jr. to “make America healthy again.” “We know chronic disease is more than 75 percent of the country’s $4 trillion annual health care expenditure. Unfortunately, we have become a sick nation. We’re paying too much for chronic disease, and this must change. It’s time to make America healthy again,” Redfield wrote in the op-ed published on Tuesday. After more than four decades in public health, Redfield believes the former president “chose the right man [RFK Jr.] for the job” to combat the processed foods industrial complex, which has ignited an obesity crisis across the Heartland.

“For instance, obesity in American children has increased dramatically since John F. Kennedy’s presidency, from around 4 percent in the 1960s to almost 20 percent in 2024,” he said, adding, “The causes of childhood obesity are complex, but a primary origin is clearly the modern American diet of highly processed foods.” He explained the causes for this obesity crisis are primarily due to “special interest and corporate influences on our federal agencies.” Redfield pointed out that “Kennedy is right” about the corporate capture problem of federal agencies.

Kennedy is right: All three of the principal health agencies suffer from agency capture. A large portion of the FDA’s budget is provided by pharmaceutical companies. NIH is cozy with biomedical and pharmaceutical companies and its scientists are allowed to collect royalties on drugs NIH licenses to pharma. And as the former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), I know the agency can be influenced by special interest groups. Redfield acknowledges that agency capture is a serious issue, highlighting that federal agencies responsible for regulating food and medicine are possibly compromised by the food industrial complex and big pharma. Maybe it was a warning sign when big pharma and the feds pushed Ozempic as the ‘wonder shot’ to end the obesity crisis instead of promoting exercise and safe, clean food.

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Enemies of the Constitution. They will end the country.

“..an explosion of books and articles laying out a new vision of “democracy” unconstrained by constitutional limits on majority power..”

• The Assault on America’s Defining Principles (Turley)

Kamala Harris declared in Tuesday’s debate that a vote for her is a vote “to end the approach that is about attacking the foundations of our democracy ’cause you don’t like the outcome.” She was alluding to the 2021 Capitol riot, but she and her party are also attacking the foundations of our democracy: the Supreme Court and the freedom of speech. Several candidates for the 2020 presidential nomination, including Ms. Harris, said they were open to the idea of packing the court by expanding the number of seats. Mr. Biden opposed the idea, but a week after he exited the 2024 presidential race, he announced a “bold plan” to “reform” the high court. It would pack the court via term limits and also impose a “binding code of conduct,” aimed at conservative justices. Ms. Harris quickly endorsed the proposal in a statement, citing a “clear crisis of confidence” in the court owing to “decision after decision overturning long-standing precedent.”

She might as well have added “because you don’t like the outcome.” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D., R.I.) has already introduced ethics and term-limits legislation and said Ms. Harris’s campaign has told him “that your bills are precisely aligned with what we are talking about.” The attacks on the court are part of a growing counterconstitutional movement that began in higher education and seems recently to have reached a critical mass in the media and politics. The past few months have seen an explosion of books and articles laying out a new vision of “democracy” unconstrained by constitutional limits on majority power. Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the UC Berkeley law school, is author of “No Democracy Lasts Forever: How the Constitution Threatens the United States,” published last month. In a 2021 Los Angeles Times op-ed, he described conservative justices as “partisan hacks.”

In the New York Times, book critic Jennifer Szalai scoffs at what she calls “Constitution worship.” She writes: “Americans have long assumed that the Constitution could save us; a growing chorus now wonders whether we need to be saved from it.” She frets that by limiting the power of the majority, the Constitution “can end up fostering the widespread cynicism that helps authoritarianism grow.” In a 2022 New York Times op-ed, “The Constitution Is Broken and Should Not Be Reclaimed,” law professors Ryan D. Doerfler of Harvard and Samuel Moyn of Yale called for liberals to “reclaim America from constitutionalism.” Others have railed against individual rights. In my new book on free speech, I discuss this movement against what many professors deride as “rights talk.” Barbara McQuade of the University of Michigan Law School has called free speech America’s “Achilles’ heel.”

In another Times op-ed, “The First Amendment Is Out of Control,” Columbia law professor Tim Wu, a former Biden White House aide, asserts that free speech “now mostly protects corporate interests” and threatens “essential jobs of the state, such as protecting national security and the safety and privacy of its citizens.” George Washington University Law’s Mary Ann Franks complains that the First Amendment (and also the Second) is too “aggressively individualistic” and endangers “domestic tranquility” and “general welfare.” Mainstream Democrats are listening to radical voices. “How much does the current structure benefit us?” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) said in 2021, explaining her support for a court-packing bill.

“I don’t think it does.” Kelley Robinson, president of the Human Rights Campaign, said at the Democratic National Committee’s “LGBTQ+ Kickoff” that “we’ve got to reimagine” democracy “in a way that is more revolutionary than . . . that little piece of paper.” Both AOC and Ms. Robinson later spoke to the convention itself. The Nation’s Elie Mystal calls the Constitution “trash” and urges the abolition of the U.S. Senate. Rosa Brooks of Georgetown Law School complains that Americans are “slaves” to the Constitution.

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“..many departments have purged their ranks of Republicans, conservatives, and libertarians.”

• What Happens if We Hold College and Nobody Comes? (Turley)

In the 1930s, Bertolt Brecht asked “What if they gave a war and nobody came?” As someone who has been a teacher for over 30 years, I find myself increasingly asking the same question as trust and enrollments fall in higher education. Trust in higher education is plummeting to record lows. According to recent polling, there has been a record drop in trust in higher education since just 2015. Not surprisingly, given the growing viewpoint intolerance on our campuses, the largest drops are among Republicans and Independents. There has been a precipitous decline in enrollments across the country as universities worry about covering their costs without raising already high tuition rates. From 2010 to 2021, enrollments fell from roughly 18.1 million students to about 15.4 million. There are various contributors to the drop from falling birthrates to poor economic times.

However, there is also an increasing view of higher education as an academic echo chamber for far left agendas. For many, there is little appeal in going to campuses where you are expected to self-censor and professors reject your values as part of their lesson plans. That fear is magnified by surveys showing that many departments have purged their ranks of Republicans, conservatives, and libertarians. In my new book “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage,” I discuss the intolerance in higher education and surveys showing that many departments no longer have a single Republican as faculties replicate their own views and values. One survey (based on self-reporting) found that only nine percent of law professors identified as conservative. Some anti-free speech advocates are actually citing higher education as a model for social media in showing how “unlikeable voices” have been eliminated.

Many of those “unlikeable” people are now going elsewhere as schools focus on degrees in activism and denouncing math, statistics, the classics, and even meritocracy as examples of white privilege. Schools offering classic education are experiencing rising enrollments, but the growing crisis has not changed the bias in hiring and teaching. Despite repeated losses in courts, universities and colleges continue to deny free speech and diversity of thought. The fact is that this academic echo chamber may be killing educational institutions, but the intolerance still works to the advantage of faculty who can control publications, speaking opportunities, and advancement with like-minded ideologues. We have seen the same perverse incentive in the media where media outlets are seeing plummeting readers and revenue.

Journalism schools and editors now maintain that reporters should reject objectivity and neutrality as touchstones of journalism. It does not matter that this advocacy journalism is killing the profession. Reporters and editors continue to saw at the limb upon which they sit due to the same advantage for academics. For reporters, converting newsrooms into echo chambers gives them more security, advancement, and opportunities. Recently, the new Washington Post publisher and CEO William Lewis was brought into the paper to right the ship. He told the staff “let’s not sugarcoat it…We are losing large amounts of money. Your audience has halved in recent years. People are not reading your stuff. Right. I can’t sugarcoat it anymore.” The response from reporters was to call for owner Jeff Bezos to fire Lewis and others seeking to change the culture.

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“I will give you the lowest taxes, the lowest energy costs, the lowest regulatory burden and free access to the best and biggest market on the planet, but only if you make your product here in America.”

• Taxes and Tariffs and Trade: Trump’s Plan To Bolster The Economy (JTN)

In a bid to build a broader coalition, former President Donald Trump has outlined a vision of tax cuts, import tariffs, and “reciprocal trade” to preserve and restore American industries. Since coming down the escalator of Trump Tower in 2015, the Republican standard bearer has espoused unconventional trade policies and dragged much of the GOP kicking and screaming toward protectionism. His tenure saw the U.S. renegotiate trade agreements with its neighbors, resulting in the United States, Mexico, Canada Agreement (USMCA), while also waging a trade war with China seeking to curb some of Beijing’s abuses. His signature tax plan, the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, saw the doubling of the standard deduction and the reduction of the corporate tax rate to 21%. As he has sought to contrast himself with Harris, Trump has highlighted both elements of his economic plan and doubled down on the tax cuts and tariffs approach.

“So, as your president, here is the deal that I will be offering to every major company and manufacturer on Earth,” he said at a Tuesday event in Savannah, Ga. “I will give you the lowest taxes, the lowest energy costs, the lowest regulatory burden and free access to the best and biggest market on the planet, but only if you make your product here in America.” “It all goes away if you don’t make your product here and hire American workers for the job,” he warned. His message, so far, appears to have resonated with working class voters, notably the traditionally Democratic-leaning union workers. After internal polling showed that its members decidedly favored Trump over Vice President Kamala Harris, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters declined to endorse a candidate, marking the first time in decades that the union had not backed a Democrat for president.

In recent weeks, Trump has unveiled a litany of tax relief proposals, most of which involve either simplifying the system or eliminating taxation on certain sources of income entirely. Speaking at a New York rally last week, Trump vowed to restore state-and-local-tax (SALT) deductions for federal tax returns in an about-face after signing the TCJA, which imposed a $10,000 cap on SALT deductions. “I will cut taxes for families, small businesses and workers, including restoring the SALT deduction, saving thousands of dollars for residents of New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and other high cost states,” he said. Earlier this month, he pledged to eliminate all taxes on overtime work as well, saying “[t]he people who work overtime are among the hardest working citizens in our country … It’s time for the working man and woman to finally catch a break.”

Trump has also promised to end taxation on Social Security benefits, a proposal that has drawn broad support from the public across most age brackets, according to recent polling. Among the most notable of his campaign pitches, however, has been a pledge to eliminate taxes on tips, which he announced at a June rally in Nevada in a bid to win over service workers in the critical battleground. Separate from pledging further tax cuts, he has also made the TCJA a central fixture of his campaign. Many of the act’s cuts are set to expire next year and he has begun to focus on the adverse impacts for taxpayers of permitting those cuts to sunset.

Using information from the Tax Foundation, the Trump campaign this month launched a website, dubbed kamalataxincrease.com, breaking down the average cost to tax-paying families by state. The site estimates that a Harris-proposed tax plan would cost families an average of $2,580.57 in additional taxes per year. The TCJA lowered the corporate tax rate to 21%, but Trump vowed to go further in his Tuesday speech, promising a “manufacturing Renaissance” through a “15% Made in America tax rate.” “We’re cutting the business tax from 21% to 15% which makes us the most competitive tax anywhere on the planet, but only for those who make their product in the USA. See, that’s an incentive,” he said. “[P]eople are going to be pouring in. Companies are going to be pouring in.”

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They’re trying to run out the clock. “Massie then called for answers on the matter before Election Day.”

• FBI Claims it Doesn’t Have DNC’s Jan. 6 Pipe Bomb Footage (HUSA)

The FBI has claimed that it doesn’t have the Democratic National Committee headquarters’ security footage from the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol Hill uprising—footage that would presumably show the discovery of a pipe bomb that was allegedly planted outside the DNC the night before. The FBI’s admission was revealed in a Friday letter from Homeland Security Inspector General Joseph Cuffari to Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky. In that letter, Cuffari said he asked the FBI to review the DNC security videos from Jan. 6—but was told that the bureau doesn’t have that footage. “On March 18, 2022, the FBI informed DHS OIG that it did not have any video footage from January 6, 2021,” Cuffari told Massie.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1838980352901079550

The letter to Massie was revealed Tuesday, the same day Revolver News published a report suggesting that the DNC pipe bomb footage was tampered with. Revolver reported that an unnamed DHS-OIG official viewed the DNC footage, and said that the footage clearly shows the pipe bomber planting a device on the evening of Jan. 5—something that the footage released by the FBI to the public doesn’t show. Revolver also reported that the DHS-OIG official had to go to the DNC to view the footage—raising questions about why the FBI doesn’t have video of one of the most significant crimes from the whole Jan. 6 fiasco. “We can only conclude that either the FBI is lying and did have footage, or they’re telling the truth and for some reason deleted the footage,” Revolver wrote on Tuesday. Meanwhile, Vice President Kamala Harris continues to be tight-lipped on the subject, despite the fact that her motorcade drove past the DNC pipe bomb on Jan. 6.

Harris left the Capitol at 11:21 a.m. arrived to the DNC at 11:25 a.m., but the nearby pipe bomb wasn’t discovered until 1:07 p.m. by a plainclothes Capitol Police officer. Some J6 researchers argue that Harris’s silence on the issue suggests that the U.S. government is engaging in a coverup with the pipe bomb case—perhaps because a government asset planted the bombs, or for some other unknown reason. On Tuesday, Massie raised that possibility again. “It’s almost as if they don’t want to know. Can you rule out that there were any confidential human sources involved in the whole pipe bomb thing?” Massie asked DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz. Horowitz said he didn’t “recall” whether any government assets were involved, but he’d have to go back and refresh his memory. Massie then called for answers on the matter before Election Day.

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“Mar-a-Lago is worth $18-26 million”. That alone closes the case.

• Appeals Court Seems Skeptical of New York Civil Fraud Suit Against Trump (ET)

Appeals judges in New York fielded multiple questions to the New York Attorney General’s Office on Sept. 26 indicating that they were skeptical of its application of an anti-fraud law to former President Donald Trump’s business practices. The questions came during oral arguments over Trump’s claims that the state Supreme Court erred in handling the civil fraud case, which resulted in a $489 million penalty for the former president. Trump’s attorney in the case, D. John Sauer, told a five-judge panel in the court’s appellate division that the judge and prosecutors flouted time limits on the claims involved. He noted that Attorney General Letitia James’s office pressed an overly broad interpretation of legally punishable fraud and that, regardless, the former president hadn’t committed fraud in his dealings with banks and others. Some of the judges questioned whether the state was acting within the bounds of its authority or had a legitimate interest in bringing the suit.

Justice David Friedman pressed New York Deputy Solicitor General Judith Vale on whether there was any precedent for the attorney general suing over transactions involving sophisticated parties where neither “lost any money. “Every case that you cite involves damage to consumers, damage to the marketplace. … We don’t have anything like that here,” Friedman said. Vale argued that “there was absolutely a public impact and a public interest here.” “There are at least four different public harms from the kind of misconduct here,” she said. Vale also said that “when risk is injected into the market, that does hurt the counterparties and it does hurt the market as a whole.” Justice Peter Moulton asked, “How do we draw a line, or at least [put up] some guardrails to know when the AG is operating well within her broad, admittedly broad sphere of 63(12)?”

Moulton was referring to New York Executive Law 63(12), which is the statute James used in suing Trump. The statute allows the attorney general to apply for court intervention when “any person shall engage in repeated fraudulent or illegal acts or otherwise demonstrate persistent fraud or illegality in the carrying on, conducting or transaction of business.” Part of Sauer’s argument was that the attorney general’s conception of fraud was too loose and noted that no one was victimized by Trump’s conduct. At one point, he told the court that under existing precedent, “there has to be a capacity or tendency to deceive, or atmosphere conducive to fraud.” “And what we’ve pointed out is that you have a situation where there were no victims, no complaints,” he said, also saying that Trump’s business partners did their due diligence.

Presiding Justice Dianne Renwick was skeptical that the statute required some kind of harm in order to prove fraudulent activity. She read the relevant portion of the statute and told Vale: “I don’t read harm or threat of harm in that, but the other side is saying that that is to be read into this statute. “Are there any cases where the language harm or threat to harm limits the scope of the attorney general?” Vale said that there weren’t “as to liability and not in cases like this where what the attorney general is seeking injunctive relief and disgorgement.”

Trump is currently facing a disgorgement of $489 million with interest accruing by the day. During oral arguments, Vale encountered multiple questions about the appropriateness of the disgorgement. Moulton told Vale that the disgorgement amount was “troubling.” “How do you tether the amount that was assessed by [the] Supreme Court to the harm that was caused here, where the parties left these transactions happy about how things went down?” he asked. Vale responded that “disgorgement looks at taking the gain away from the wrongdoer.” Although the amount was high, she said that “there was a lot of fraud … and illegality.”

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Posted the video yesterday. Here’s some backgroud added in.

• FBI Specialist Urges Americans to Prepare For Hardship (MN)

A former FBI specialist who was persecuted for questioning January 6 said during a hearing with lawmakers on Capitol Hill that Americans should stock up on food and prepare for hardship. Marcus Allen, a former FBI staff operations specialist, told the Judiciary Subcommittee on Weaponization of the Federal Government that he was deliberately targeted by higher ups for asking why there were so many federal informants in the crowd at the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot. “The FBI questioned my allegiance to the United States, suspended my security clearance, suspended my pay and refused to allow me to obtain outside employment or even accept charity,” Allen testified The feds came down hard on Allen after he sent an email on September 21st, 2021 which his supervisors claimed contained hyperlinks to “extremist propaganda” from “questionable sources”.

Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz, who testified alongside Allen, is investigating the FBI’s security clearance and adjudication process, including the targeting of “political conservatives who were seen as loyal to Trump or resistant to COVID-19 vaccine mandates.” “There are no words strong enough to describe the impact the FBI’s lies about me have had on me and my family,” said Allen during an emotional statement. “The stress has taken a toll on our health and our children have suffered, traumatized by the thought of our door getting kicked in or Dad not coming home.” Allen added even more ominously: “This is a warning, to the American people I say.. I personally have no confidence the FBI will reign in its own conduct.” However, it was Allen’s final comments that raised many eyebrows.

The former FBI staffer urged Americans to use their right to vote despite any doubts they may have about election integrity. “My other recommendations are in the natural order,” Allen continued, “Arm yourself and know how to defend yourself, make three to four friends in your neighborhood and promise to come to each other’s mutual aid in times of hardship.” “And during the great depression, people stocked up their pantry, so I think that’s a good practice especially in our economic times, and make sure you have three to four months of food,” he added. Allen also urged Americans to pray and read the bible regularly.

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Boeing can’t afford any of this.

• Boeing Machinists on Strike Have a Historic Opportunity (Sawant)

In a potentially game-changing move, 33,000 Boeing machinists in the Pacific Northwest, unionized with IAM District 751, are on strike after rejecting the company’s initial insulting contract offer. A stunning 96 percent of the rank and file voted to go on strike, marking a sea change for the fight of working people at Boeing. For decades, Boeing’s executives and wealthy shareholders have, with the active help from Democrats and Republicans in Washington state and Washington D.C., enforced a decades-long brutal regime that has thrown both workers and safety standards under the bus in favor of short-term profit maximization for themselves. The strike offers an opening for the company’s workers to win historic gains and begin rebuilding a fighting union with a militant, active rank-and-file membership.

Like workers everywhere, Boeing machinists are fighting for decent wages and benefits in the face of the sky-high cost of living. The workers are demanding a 40 percent wage increase, which is the bare minimum they need given the ground they have lost in past sell-out contracts from the bosses, combined with historic inflation levels and high living costs in the region. They are angry at Boeing’s shell games, including the attempt to take away their annual employee bonuses (called “AMPP”), which they were promised in return for being forced to accept higher healthcare costs in a past contract. They are also demanding an end to the intolerable regime of mandatory overtime, which is running rampant at Boeing, denying workers the right to a life outside of work. The machinists are also fighting for a restoration of defined benefit pension, and full and retroactive reinstatement of pension for all workers.

The initial contract offer from the Boeing bosses came nowhere close to meeting these demands. What Boeing touted as a 25 percent raise over four years in the contract offer is, in reality, much less. When coupled with the cost of living and the removal of the annual AMPP bonus, the proposed raises don’t even make up for recent and future inflation, much less the severe blows from past contracts. The offer also fails to restore workers’ pensions.Since the strike began, Boeing has been forced to release a second contract offer, which includes a 30 percent pay increase over the next 4 years, up from 25 percent in the last offer. The strike has also forced Boeing to back down from their attempt to take away workers’ annual bonuses. But this new offer is still far less than what workers have been demanding and what they need, and workers immediately responded both on the picket line and in social media with their strong opposition to this totally inadequate offer, saying they must continue the strike.

The union leadership has now come out with a statement that says as much also, and which condemns the disgraceful way in which Boeing has attempted to undemocratically circumvent the union with this offer. Because of this, they are rejecting this new offer outright.In the Seattle area, a job at Boeing used to be highly sought after — it was a path to decent wages and benefits and relative stability. A common phrase among workers was “If it ain’t Boeing, I ain’t going.” With the attacks over the last 15 years, many new Boeing workers are instead being paid less than the Seattle minimum wage, and the company has had higher and higher turnover. These attacks on the workforce have gone hand-in-hand with the corporation’s major struggles in recent years with safety and quality control.

The strike comes in the wake of the machinists being sold out in a spectacularly shameful deal made over a decade ago in November 2013 by Boeing executives and shareholders with the Democratic Party-dominated Washington State Legislature, and Democratic Governor, Jay Inslee. The defined benefit pension plan, won by the unionized machinists in previous decades, was eliminated in one fell swoop. A defined benefit plan, which is currently accessible only to a small proportion of the workforce in the private sector and which was won through labor struggle, is a plan that guarantees retired workers a decent income for life. This was replaced by Boeing with a far weaker 401(K) retirement system that leaves workers at the mercy of the ups and downs of the stock market. This dramatically undermines annual retirement income, as well as shifting the risk away from the executives and major shareholders of big corporations like Boeing onto the backs of working people.

The Democratic Party justified this historic attack on both the Boeing machinists and working people statewide by claiming that it was necessary to save jobs. Boeing executives had carried out public extortion, threatening to take away the final assembly of the 777X aircraft out of Washington state, which would eliminate an estimated 10,000 union jobs. State and local Democrats from across the region insisted that the machinists accept the contract, and scandalously told them that if they didn’t, they would be responsible for not only the loss of their own jobs, but also the broader economic repercussions if Boeing were to move future production out of state.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Shots

 

 

Hurricane


https://twitter.com/i/status/1839079306586386738

 

 

Not impresssed
https://twitter.com/i/status/1839397581476257900

 

 

Jaguar

 

 

 

 

 

 

Support the Automatic Earth in wartime with Paypal, Bitcoin and Patreon.

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle September 10 2024

Sep 102024
 
 September 10, 2024  Posted by at 8:56 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  58 Responses »


Pieter Bruegel the Elder Children’s games 1560

 

• Harris Team Drafts Trump Stand-in For Debate Prep – WaPo (RT)
• There’s No Debate (Quoth the Raven)
• Suggestions for Trump in His Debate with Kamala (Paul Craig Roberts)
• Professors Rally Academics Around ‘Less Bad’ Candidate Trump (Caldwell)
• Trump Repeats Putin Bribe (Helmer)
• Nuland Confirms West Told Zelensky To Abandon Peace Deal (RT)
• Democrats Aren’t Creating Disorder; They’re Preserving it (Turley)
• The Prosecution of Elon Musk for “Undermining” the Federal Government (Turley)
• Enabling a “Brutus” to Slay the Elon Musk “Caesar” (Alastair Crooke)
• Russia Remains Hackers’ Top Target for Past 2.5 Years – Kaspersky (Sp.)
• Trump Unveils Plan To Stop De-Dollarization (RT)
• Boeing Offers Staff 25% Pay Hike In Bid To Avoid Strike (BBC)
• Germany Announces Tougher Border Controls (RT)

 

 

 

 

Free speech
https://twitter.com/i/status/1832786512422764937

 

 

Tucker Cheney

 

 

Burgum

 

 

Google

 

 

Judge Joe Brown

 

 

Sen. John Kennedy
https://twitter.com/i/status/1832757264869896389

 

 

Dinesh

 

 

 

 

 

 

He also prepped Hillary in 2016. We know how that went.

They’ll try to trigger Trump. It’s all they got.

• Harris Team Drafts Trump Stand-in For Debate Prep – WaPo (RT)

US Vice President Kamala Harris has spent several days intensively preparing for the upcoming presidential debate against Republican Party presidential nominee Donald Trump, the Washington Post wrote on Monday. Harris’ team has brought in a longtime Democratic operative to ‘play’ Trump during the sessions, the report said. Harris and Trump are set for their first face-off on Tuesday night, an event held at Philadelphia’s National Constitution Center and hosted by ABC News. According to the Post, Harris has made few public appearances in recent days, instead spending most of them instead at an intensive “debate camp” in Pittsburgh’s Omni William Penn Hotel. Her aides have reportedly created a mock set-up to mimic the layout of the debate studio.

They also “cast a veteran Donald Trump stand-in to unleash harsh attacks and offensive comments; and put the vice president through hours of rehearsed questions,” the paper wrote. That stand-in is Philippe Reines, a longtime Hillary Clinton aide. Reines had initially been enlisted to play Senator J.D. Vance when Harris was set to face him in the vice-presidential debate before President Joe Biden dropped out of the race. “Now that Harris has ascended to the top of the ticket and will face Trump, Reines has stayed on to play the former president, reprising the role he played for Clinton during her 2016 debate preparations,” the paper wrote. Trump, who on Tuesday will participate in his seventh general election debate since 2016, appears to have taken a different approach to debate prep.

According to the Post, the former president spent much of the weekend at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, opting for “policy sessions” with aides. The Republican nominee does not like the public perception that he is practicing at all, according to his advisers, the Post said. Those aides said Trump views rallies and interviews as the best preparation for the debate. Trump’s debate with the 81-year-old Biden in June ended the latter’s campaign on July 21 amid widespread concern about his age and fitness for office. The stumbling debate performance against Trump and numerous gaffes led to Biden’s withdrawal from the race and his endorsement of Harris. She formally accepted the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination at its national convention in Chicago last month. The vice president has this week suffered a fall in the polls for the first time since becoming her party’s presidential candidate. A New York Times/Siena poll released on Sunday showed Trump edging out Harris 48% to 47% among likely voters nationally.

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“I believe strongly in everybody’s right to prioritize whatever they like in their lives. We used to call that freedom and, in this country, it’s supposed to be sacrosanct…”

• There’s No Debate (Quoth the Raven)

As the news trucks and security details begin lining the streets of my neighborhood in Philadelphia, obstructing traffic and causing general chaos over the next few days leading into tomorrow’s debate, part of me wonders if I’m being crass and partisan when I shrug and wonder what there is to actually debate. As I wrote about last week, the substance of what Kamala Harris is going to bring to the debate stage tomorrow night will have very little to do with policy and will instead likely rely on jabs about Trump’s personality, mistruths about media hoaxes like Charlottesville, and statements ascribing to Trump things he has publicly disavowed, like Project 2025. This gaslighting campaign will likely be combined with strategic flip-flopping to acquiesce to policy positions that were Trump’s to begin with. We’ve already seen this leading into the debate.

First, it was stealing the “no tax on tips” policy, then it was reversing her stance on fracking, then it was claiming she’s not for an electric vehicle mandate, and then it was using photographs of Trump’s border wall in advertisements, claiming she is tough on immigration. It would be hilarious, if it wasn’t instead deeply, deeply sad for our country. The cold, hard facts are that when it comes to policy, there is no debate – and so tomorrow turns mostly into an exercise on how to run a crisis public relations campaign by Kamala Harris while Trump does what he always does: bludgeons his way forward ruthlessly. Trump will say what he’s been saying for the better part of a decade, with little change, and Harris will attempt to present a $2,500/hour McKinsey consulting, focus group approved, slide deck book report on a book she clearly hasn’t read.

As I said to Andy Schectman on our podcast this weekend, I can understand voting for a Democrat if your number one priority is abortion. If the right to be able to get an abortion in all 50 states at any time, for any reason, is the most important thing in your life, it makes sense to me that you would vote Democrat. Even though Trump reportedly won’t push for a national abortion ban and has taken the stand that he only wants to move the decision back to the states, there is still a significant amount of “my body, my choice” fear after the Roe vs. Wade repeal, ironically, from many people on the left who were perfectly fine with trampling on people’s rights to travel, work and otherwise live their lives due to vaccine mandates. I don’t pretend to understand how that could outweigh all the numerous other issues that would heavily impact our quality of life for some people.

I believe strongly in everybody’s right to prioritize whatever they like in their lives. We used to call that freedom and, in this country, it’s supposed to be sacrosanct. And so there’s my one concession for the left side of the aisle: abortion. When it comes to almost every other major key issue, when understood properly, to me there really is no debate. There’s no doubt that the country experienced an incredible surge in illegal immigration over the last four years under the Biden-Harris regime. If you are pro-undocumented, illegal immigrants, who rely on taxpayer cash to get by and who take jobs and opportunities from both existing citizens and legal immigrants, then I argue that you don’t understand the problem well enough. Emotionally, it’s a lovely gesture to say something like “no human being is illegal,” but when Haitians start taking over your small town, cutting the heads off of park geese to eat them, while sleeping on mattresses on your front lawn or living in 5-star hotels on taxpayer cash, the reality of a country bloated with illegal immigrants becomes clearer.

On the issue, there really is no comparison: Kamala Harris was not tough on the border and, on the contrary, actively fought against Texas when they tried to secure their own border. Though his rhetoric may be uncomfortable to some emotional amoebae who have little understanding of how the real world works, Donald Trump kept the country secure and made the border a top priority to his presidency. To me, there’s no debate on who handled this issue better.

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“..in America law is a shield of the people, but that the Democrats have turned it into a weapon in the hands of the state..”

• Suggestions for Trump in His Debate with Kamala (Paul Craig Roberts)

Now that a debate is back on schedule for Tuesday September 10, I have these suggestions for Trump: Trump must leave Kamala alone and address issues whether or not she does. If he attacks Kamala, certainly a target, American women will vote against him. Trump should stress the open border problem with immigrant-invader gangs now seizing apartment houses and homes in blue jurisdictions, and with hotels, motels, school gyms, and bus and airport terminals full of immigrant-invaders who have no where to go except to the existing housing stock where illegal occupancy in blue jurisdictions is merely a “landlord-tenant issue.” You go pick up your kid from school and on your return your home is occupied by armed immigrant-invaders. The police tell you that it is not a police matter. Trump should have the news reports at hand.

Trump should stress that pushing against Russia and China invites nuclear war that threatens the entire world and has to stop. The power of nuclear weapons leaves no room for cultivating hostility between countries. Trump should say that Israel has hurt its reputation by its unrestrained assault on Gaza and the West bank and is making it difficult for America to continue its unconditional support of its ally. Israel needs to understand that there are limits on what Washington can support. Trump should emphasize that in America law is a shield of the people, but that the Democrats have turned it into a weapon in the hands of the state, a weapon unjustly used against the many who are in prison for attending a Trump rally. He should stress that a rule of law cannot be partisan.

Trump should say that the US economy needs more balance than it has between Wall Street’s and billionaire’s gains and the incomes of the rest of the people. Trump should ignore, not respond to, the “moderator” and questioners and speak directly to Americans without acknowledging hostile questioners. When it is his turn to speak, he should say what needs to be said and ignore loaded questions designed to paint a target on him. Trump must contain his aggressive and combative style, address the issues that threaten us and not make the usual political promises that indicate just another pandering politician buying votes. He should say that if elected, what he can do also depends on who voters put in the House and Senate. If he is hamstrung with a Democrat Congress, he will be deterred by another four years of false accusations and impeachments.

The Democrats and the media have been studying Trump’s personality and know how to provoke him into a rage that the presstitutes can then use to portray him as angry, intolerant, unstable. Trump must not play into their hands. If Trump follows these suggestions, it will be difficult for the Democrats to again steal the election as most Americans will know that there is nothing in a candidate with these positions not to like.

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If you’re an academic, you may actually think you matter..

• Professors Rally Academics Around ‘Less Bad’ Candidate Trump (Caldwell)

University professors have started a petition for academics to rally behind Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election. The petition statement, a project of Professor Daniel Klein of George Mason University and Daniel Mahoney, professor emeritus of political science at Assumption University, encourages scholars to support the Republican candidate. As of Thursday, 51 professors had signed it. The list so far represents a mix of emeritus and current scholars from both private and public universities, including well known institutions and state schools. Titled “Lesser Evil,” it emphasizes the founding principle of individual liberty while decrying big government, and affirms the Declaration of Independence’s exaltation of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” as the “chief aims of good governance.”

According to Klein, Republicans are more predisposed to oppose stark centralization, hence his support for what he deems the “lesser evil”: the Republican presidential candidate. “Except for a few odd places and a very few odd units on a few campuses, academia is a leftist apparatus. Academia continues to get worse,” Klein told The College Fix in a recent email. In his estimation, “it is less than 10 percent of professors who think R > D.” The petition comes amid concerns over ideological diversity on college campuses. Reports by The Fix and others have found university faculty lean heavily Democrat. Since The Fix’s first contact with Klein in late August, the number of signatures has doubled. The list will continue to be updated with new signatures through the November election. “The initiative might help the Republicans to win, and certainly can’t hurt,” Klein said.

To emphasize the crux of their message, the professors included a graphic on the petition website, “Democrats bad, Republicans less bad,” that breaks down where the two parties stand on various issues, including taxes, religious liberty, censorship, asset forfeiture, and energy policy. Continuing, Klein told The Fix other reasons for the project are “(1) To normalize the voicing of the R > D opinion within academia. (2) To get my fellow classical liberals to face up to their responsibility to decide whether R > D or D > R, as well as their responsibilities, to come to that decision virtuously and to be frank and open about holding their opinion.” If the petition succeeds in getting professors to re-think their political leanings, it could cultivate a more amicable atmosphere for right-leaning students and professors. Klein, however, said conservatives shouldn’t hold their breath.

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“..US sanctions “don’t need to be lifted, they need to be bypassed.”

• Trump Repeats Putin Bribe (Helmer)

Presidential candidate Donald Trump has repeated his promise to end the Ukraine war the day after his re-election with a bribe for President Vladimir Putin and his two pro-American constituencies, the Central Bank of Russia and the Russian oligarchs. Applauded by an audience of New York lawyers and businessmen on Thursday afternoon, September 5, Trump answered a question from a Sullivan & Cromwell lawyer, Rodgin Cohen, who asked if Trump “would strengthen or modify any of these economic sanctions, particularly Russia.” Trump replied that sanctions “ultimately kill the dollar and kill everything the dollar represents. We have to continue to have that be the world currency…I think that if we lose the dollar as the world currency, I think that would be the equivalent of losing a war. That would make us a third world country…you’re losing Iran; you’re losing Russia.China is out there trying to get their currency to be the dominant one…I want to use sanctions as little as possible.”

Instead, Trump proposed penalty tariffs on hostile-country trade with the US. “I stopped wars with the threat of tariffs…The biggest threat you have is that you lose that [dominant] currency, and we have lost something we can never get back…. If we win [on November 5], I believe I can settle that war while I am president-elect, before I ever get into office… Sanctions have to be used very judiciously. We have things much more powerful, actually, than sanctions – we have trade [tariffs] but we cannot lose our dollar standard. Very important.”. The mainstream US media have not reported what Trump said. The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and New York Post – all supporting Vice President Kamala Harris in their campaign coverage – ignored the Economic Club meeting entirely. The Hill, a Washington-based publication for political specialists, headlined its report, “5 takeaways from Trump’s economic address in New York”, but the report didn’t include the sanctions proposal.

The next day, September 6, the New York Times reported Trump at a rally in Wisconsin: “though American spy agencies have assessed that the Kremlin favors Mr. Trump, the former president made light of President Vladimir V. Putin’s apparently sarcastic [sic] statement recently that he supported Ms. Harris. ‘He endorsed Kamala,’ Mr. Trump said. ‘I was very offended by that. I wonder why he endorsed Kamala. No, he’s a chess player.’” RT, the Russian state propaganda organ, did not notice Trump’s remarks on sanctions. But it reported his next-day attack on Putin for endorsing Harris, emphasizing, like the Times about Putin, that Trump was speaking tongue in cheek. Last week in New York Trump was rehearsing presentation of his economic policies ahead of the television debate with Harris scheduled for Tuesday.

He was also repeating the “limited sanctions relief” proposal recommended to Trump in April by his former staffers, US Army Lieutenant-General (retired) Keith Kellogg and Frederick Fleitz, a 19-year CIA official and race war fighter. In Moscow there have been several signals of Putin’s readiness to negotiate on Trump’s terms. The president’s deputy chief of staff, Sergei Kirienko, told a group of Kremlin officials and consultants working on US election propaganda in 2022 that the US sanctions “don’t need to be lifted, they need to be bypassed.”

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“..started asking questions about whether this was a good deal and it was at that point that it fell apart..”

• Nuland Confirms West Told Zelensky To Abandon Peace Deal (RT)

Kiev consulted with the US, UK and other allies during the 2022 Istanbul peace talks with Russia and was told that the deal on the table was not a good one, former US under secretary of state Victoria Nuland has said. In an interview with Russian journalist Mikhail Zygar, former editor-in-chief of the opposition news channel Dozhd, which aired on Thursday, Nuland was asked to comment on reports that the peace process between Moscow and Kiev in late March and early April 2022 collapsed after then-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson traveled to Ukraine and told Vladimir Zelensky to keep fighting.

“Relatively late in the game the Ukrainians began asking for advice on where this thing was going and it became clear to us, clear to the Brits, clear to others that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s main condition was buried in an annex to this document that they were working on,” she said of the deal being discussed by the Russian and Ukrainian delegations in Türkiye’s largest city. The proposed agreement included limits on the kinds of weapons that Kiev could possess, as a result of which Ukraine “would basically be neutered as a military force,” while there were no similar constraints on Russia, the former diplomat explained. “People inside Ukraine and people outside Ukraine started asking questions about whether this was a good deal and it was at that point that it fell apart,” Nuland said.

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“Somewhere in that double negative, journalism perished.”

• Democrats Aren’t Creating Disorder; They’re Preserving it (Turley)

In 1968, in the midst of Democratic convention riots, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley famously declared, “The policeman isn’t there to create disorder; the policeman is there to preserve disorder.” Democratic state election officials appear to have adopted a similar approach to the upcoming election. In states such as North Carolina and Michigan, Democrats are fighting to keep the name of Robert Kennedy, Jr. on the ballot even though he withdrew from the race and endorsed former president Donald Trump. These are key states where the misplacement of even 1 percent of votes could turn the outcome of not just the state but the entire election. In Michigan, Democratic Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson recently fought to keep third-party candidate Cornel West off the ballot. Unlike Kennedy, who is viewed as likely to drain votes from Trump, West is viewed as pulling votes from Vice President Kamala Harris, particularly among those opposed to her policies toward Israel.

A court ruled against Benson and said that she was adopting an artificially narrow interpretation to keep Kennedy on the ballot. In North Carolina, where Trump and Harris are in a statistical tie, Democrats also refused to remove Kennedy’s name. An appellate court this week ordered them to do so to avoid the obvious confusion for voters. Recently, the same Democratic officials sought to block West from the ballot due to his campaign causing “partisan mischief.” These efforts are being pursued in other states such as Wisconsin (another key state), where Democrats on the election board blocked a Republican effort to remove Kennedy’s name. In Michigan and North Carolina, officials have the distinction of fighting to keep a popular candidate from the ballot while fighting to retain a non-existent candidate. It is all in the name of protecting democracy from itself.

Previously, Democrats in Florida and North Carolina fought to block other Democrats from appearing on primary ballots. Candidates like Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.), author Marianne Williamson and commentator Cenk Uygur faced concerted campaigns by election officials and advocates to prevent voters from having a choice in the primary. After preventing a meaningful primary and securing the nomination for President Biden, Democrats later handed the nomination to Harris without a single vote from a single primary voter. Democratic activists are now calling it an election by “acclamation,” like a political version of the immaculate conception in which a candidate is simply conceived by the party elite. It is enough to make the Chinese Central Committee blush.

Harris was then walled off from the media to avoid any unscripted interactions, including by putting earbuds in her ears in what many called a clearly fake call to avoid press questions. At the same time, Democratic supporters are now arguing that it is not necessary for Harris to offer detailed plans or agree to interviews in a campaign that is selling “joy” and “good vibes” like political valium. Others appear to believe that saving democracy means holding Harris to a different, more deferential standard. New York Times editorial board member Mara Gay appeared on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” to defend treating Harris differently: “I think the challenge, not just for journalists, but really for the country, is that not only is Donald Trump a threat, but, you know, it lowers the bar. So, I don’t think it’s unacceptable,” she said. Somewhere in that double negative, journalism perished.

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“Musk has proven the single greatest barrier to the global anti-free speech movement.”

• The Prosecution of Elon Musk for “Undermining” the Federal Government (Turley)

Silicon Valley investor Roger McNamee this weekend went on MSNBC’s “Last Word” and called for the arrest of Elon Musk for “undermining” the federal government by sharing his opinions on X. McNamee is the latest denizen of the global elite to call for criminalizing speech to silence those with opposing views.McNamee is the founding partner of Elevation Partners and has a colorful history as a band member, a volunteer for Eugene McCarthy and a protester against Vietnam. As discussed in my book “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage”, he is like many liberal baby boomers now joining the anti-free speech movement. They have decided that free speech, once the defining right for the left, is now an existential threat.

McNamee’s rationale for criminalizing speech is chillingly shallow and irrational. He declared that somehow Musk’s political views made him a danger as the head of companies of major importance to the United States. It does not bother him when CEOs adopt far left views, just Musk opposing some of those views: “You have somebody who runs a really strategic defense and aerospace projects for the federal government who’s actively undermining the government that’s paying him. And somewhere in that is a legal case that needs to be prosecuted.” Perish the thought that a CEO might undermine the government. McNamee is using the government contracts with SpaceX as a reason to censor Musk’s political and social views.

“The critical element in thinking about Elon Musk is that, like any American, he has a right to his own opinion, and he has a right to express his opinion. However, that right is not unlimited. He is under some special limitations that would not apply to normal people because his company, specifically Starlink and SpaceX are government contractors and, as such, he has obligations to the government that would, for any normal person, and should for him, require him to moderate his speech in the interest of national security.” So, according to McNamee, if your company makes something that the government wants (including rescuing the currently stranded astronauts in space), he must give up his right to express political views, including against censorship. McNamee embraces the power of the government to dictate viewpoints or at least silence certain views as a matter of national security. It is no accident that the overriding objective is to “get Musk.” Musk has proven the single greatest barrier to the global anti-free speech movement.

Trump Elon
https://twitter.com/i/status/1832818848485011566

Read more …

“A witty woman of the time commented: “If we weighed the votes, Monsieur Hugo would be elected; but we’re counting them.”

• Enabling a “Brutus” to Slay the Elon Musk “Caesar” (Alastair Crooke)

In the Washington Post on Monday, the headlines read: Musk and Durov are facing the revenge of the regulators. Former U.S. Labor Secretary, Robert Reich, in the British Guardian newspaper, published a piece on how to ‘rein-in’ Elon Musk, suggesting that “regulators around the world should threaten Musk with arrest” on lines of that which befell Pavel Durov recently in Paris. As should be clear to all now, ‘war’ has broken out. There is no need for further pretence about it. Rather, there is evident glee at the prospect of a crackdown on the ‘Far-Right’ and its internet users: i.e. those who spread ‘disinformation’ or mal-information that ‘threatens’ the broad ‘cognitive infrastructure’ (which is to say, what the people think!). Make no mistake, the Ruling Strata are angry; they are angry that their technical expertise and consensus about ‘just about everything’ is being spurned by the ‘deplorables’.

There will be prosecutions, convictions and fines for cyber ‘actors’ who disrupt the digital ‘literacy’, the ‘leaders’ warn. Professor Frank Furedi observes: “There is an unholy alliance of western leaders – Prime Minister Keir Starmer, French President Emanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholtz – whose hatred of what they call populism is undisguised. In his recent visits to Berlin and Paris, Starmer constantly referred to the threat posed by populism. During his meeting with Scholz in Berlin on 28 August, Starmer spoke about the importance of defeating “the snake oil of populism and nationalism”. Furedi explained that as far as Starmer was concerned, populism was a threat to the power of the technocratic élites throughout Europe:

“Speaking in Paris, a day later, Starmer pointed to the far Right as a ‘very real threat’ and again used the term ‘snake oil’ of populism. Starmer has never stopped talking about the ‘snake oil of populism’. These days virtually every political problem is blamed on populism … The coupling of the term snake-oil with populism is constantly used in the propaganda of the technocratic political elite. Indeed, tackling and discrediting snake oil populists is its number one priority”. So, what is the source of the élite’s anti-populist hysteria? The answer is that the latter know that they have become severed from the values and respect of their own people and that it is only a matter of time before they are seriously challenged, in one form or another. This reality was very much on view in Germany this last weekend, where the ‘non-Establishment (i.e. non Staatsparteien) parties – when added together – secured 60% of the vote in Thüringen and 46% in Saxony.

The Staatsparteien (the nominated establishment parties) choose to describe themselves as ‘democratic’, and to label the ‘others’ as ‘populist’ or ‘extremist’. State media even hinted that what counted more were ‘democratic’ votes; and not non-Staatsparteien votes, so the party with the most Staatsparteien votes should form the government in Thüringen. These have co-operated to exclude AfD (Alternative für Deutschland) and other non-Establishment parties from parliamentary business as far as legally possible – for instance by keeping them out of key parliamentary committees and the imposition of various forms of social ostracism. It reminds of the story of the great poet Victor Hugo’s membership rejection – no less than 22 times – by the Académie Française. The first time he applied, he received 2 votes (out of 39) from Lamartine and Chateaubriand, the two greatest men of letters of their time. A witty woman of the time commented: “If we weighed the votes, Monsieur Hugo would be elected; but we’re counting them.”

Why war? Because, after the 2016 U.S. election, the U.S. political backroom élites blamed democracy and populism for producing bad election outcomes. Anti-establishment Trump had actually won in the U.S.; Bolsonaro won too, Farage surged, Modi won again, and Brexit etc., etc. Elections were soon proclaimed to be out of control, throwing out bizarre ‘winners’. Such unwelcome outcomes threatened the deep-seated structures that both projected and safeguarded long-seated U.S. oligarchic interests around the globe, by subjecting them (oh the horror!) to voter scrutiny. By 2023, the New York Times was running essays headlined: “Elections Are Bad for Democracy”.

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The narrative on its head.

• Russia Remains Hackers’ Top Target for Past 2.5 Years – Kaspersky (Sp.)

Hackers continue cyberattacks on Russia, the country has been the most attacked country in the world for the past 2.5 years, Anna Kulashova, Kaspersky Lab’s Managing Director for Russia and the CIS, told Sputnik.
“Russia remains the most attacked country in cyberspace for more than two and a half years,” Kulashova said. In the first eight months of 2024, more than half of Russians who use Kaspersky Lab products were attacked. The financial and public sectors, telecommunications, media and industry are attracting the most attention from attackers. According to her, the problem of “hacktivism” remains relevant, when attackers can damage a company’s operations to draw attention to social or political problems. However, cyberattacks are still often committed for financial gain and espionage.

“The compromise of organizations can begin with the use of vulnerabilities in publicly available applications, user credentials obtained, including as a result of brute-force attacks, as well as attacks through small companies — contractors of larger businesses,” Kulashova explained.

She recalled that in early July, the company recorded two waves of targeted mailings to domestic businesses with malicious archives or links inside. The recipients were about a thousand employees of organizations from the manufacturing, finance and energy sectors, as well as government agencies. In the event of a successful attack, the attackers could gain remote access to the organizations’ computers, download files and confidential documents from them. Fortunately, all attacks were blocked. Also this summer, the company identified a series of complex targeted attacks on Russian IT companies and government organizations. The attackers carefully disguised their malicious activity, using popular websites such as Dropbox. The malicious campaign was aimed at stealing official information, Kulashova noted.

Read more …

No, Donald, de-dollarization is not about payments involving the US. It’s between other countries, not in dollars, out of American reach. You’re not getting that back.

• Trump Unveils Plan To Stop De-Dollarization (RT)

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has claimed that dumping the US dollar will be extremely costly for foreign countries which pursue the policy, adding that they will face unprecedented import taxes for pursuing non-dollar trade. Speaking to his supporters during a campaign rally in Wisconsin on Saturday, the former US president pledged to maintain the status of the greenback as the world’s reserve currency, emphasizing that it is “under major siege” as a growing number of states have been turning to other ways of settling trades. “You leave the dollar and you’re not doing business with the US, because we are going to put a 100% tariff on your goods” Trump said.

A broad trend towards using national currencies instead of the greenback has gained momentum following the massive economic restrictions introduced against Russia by the US and its allies in the wake of the escalation of the Ukrainian conflict in February 2022. After being cut off from the Western financial system, Moscow has turned to alternative options for settlement, with some of Russia’s foreign partners following suit. Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Russia hadn’t been pursuing a de-dollarization policy, but was forced to look for other options after a series of unprecedented measures, including Russia’s central bank being cut off from dollar transactions, a ban on the transfer of US banknotes to the country, and the freezing of the country’s forex reserves.

According to Putin, Moscow and its BRICS partners are now using national currencies in 65% of mutual trade settlements. Members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have been planning to discuss a shift to settlements in local currencies instead of the US dollar, euro, yen and pound sterling. The combined GDP of the economic bloc, which includes Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam, reportedly amounts to $4 trillion. Last week, the presidential candidate pledged to substantially reduce the use of sanctions by Washington if he is reelected in November. Speaking at the Economic Club of New York, Trump acknowledged that the curbs imposed by the US on other states are damaging for the dollar.

Read more …

No way Boeing can afford this; they’re broke. And share prices rise…

• Boeing Offers Staff 25% Pay Hike In Bid To Avoid Strike (BBC)

Boeing is offering its staff a 25% pay rise over four years in a bid to avoid a strike that could potentially shut down its assembly lines as early as Friday. Union leaders representing more than 30,000 employees have urged the workers to support the proposal, describing it as the best contract they had ever negotiated. If approved, the agreement would be an important achievement for Boeing’s new chief executive, Kelly Ortberg, who faces pressure to fix the company’s quality and reputational issues. Boeing workers in the Seattle and Portland region are set to vote on the deal on Thursday. If the deal is rejected, however, a second ballot will need to be approved by two-thirds of union members for a strike to go ahead. In a video message to Boeing workers, the aerospace giant’s chief operating officer, Stephanie Pope, described the proposal as a “historic offer”.

If ratified by members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) union, it would be the first full labour agreement between the firm and the unions in 16 years. The current contract between Boeing and the unions was first reached in 2008 following an eight-week strike. The two sides agreed to extend it in 2014 and it is now due to expire later this week. Although the preliminary deal did not match the union’s initial target of a 40% pay rise, negotiators still praised it and advised members to accept it. “We can honestly say that this proposal is the best contract we’ve negotiated in our history,” the IAM said in a statement. Aside from the pay rise, the deal offers workers improved healthcare and retirement benefits, and 12 weeks of paid parental leave.

It also includes a commitment from Boeing to build its next commercial plane in the Seattle area if the project is started during the lifetime of the contract. It is not clear when the company will announce its next jet. The deal also gives the union members more say on safety and quality issues. “Financially, the company finds itself in a tough position due to many self-inflicted missteps. It is IAM members who will bring this company back on track,” the union negotiators said, referring to the crises faced by Boeing in recent years. Mr Ortberg, an aerospace industry veteran and engineer, took over as Boeing’s new chief executive last month. His appointment came as the firm reported deepening financial losses and continued to struggle to repair its reputation following recent in-flight incidents and two fatal accidents five years ago.

Read more …

The end of the EU’s open borders system. They did this themselves.

• Germany Announces Tougher Border Controls (RT)

Germany will reimpose passport controls on its land borders for at least the next six months, in order to curb “irregular migration,” the government in Berlin has said. Germany has a 3,700km long land border with Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Switzerland, Austria, the Czech Republic and Poland. All are members of the EU Schengen Zone. “We are strengthening our internal security through concrete action and we are continuing our tough stance against irregular migration,” Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said on Monday, announcing the measure. “We are doing everything we can to protect the people in our country against this,” Faeser added.

Passport controls are scheduled to begin next Monday and last for six months, unless renewed by Berlin. According to Faeser, they are intended to crack down on people entering Germany without visas and address threats from “Islamist terror groups” and transnational organized crime. Germany ramped up controls on the borders with Poland, the Czech Republic, Austria and Switzerland last year, in response to “a sharp increase in first-time asylum requests,” according to the state broadcaster DW. Those controls were also billed as temporary, but have been repeatedly extended. Last month’s stabbing spree at a diversity festival in Solingen, when three people were killed and eight wounded, has triggered renewed debate among Germans about the mass migration from outside the EU. The suspect, a 26-year-old Syrian, had reportedly sought asylum in 2022.

The anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) and Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) parties made significant gains in the state elections in Thuringia and Saxony last week. The ruling coalition – which includes Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats – is facing another tough vote in Brandenburg later this month. The government has reportedly been in discussions about tackling migration with the mainstream opposition parties, the Christian Democrats (CDU) and the Christian Social Union (CSU). Immigrants make up an estimated 18% of Germany’s population, by official estimates. Of those, almost 40% have lived in the country for less than 10 years.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

RFK cellphone


 

RFK

Elton John

 

 

Lioness

 

 

Snow

 

 

Fasting
https://twitter.com/i/status/1833098667785392336

 

 

 

 

Support the Automatic Earth in wartime with Paypal, Bitcoin and Patreon.

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle August 25 2024

Aug 252024
 
 August 25, 2024  Posted by at 8:50 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , ,  72 Responses »


M. C. Escher Still life and street 1937

 

• RFK Jr. Takes a Flame Thrower to the Entire System (Kevin Downey Jr)
• Trump Is Back On His A-Game (C.A. Skeet)
• RFK Jr. & Trump To End War On Small Farms, Save Nation’s Food Supply Chain (ZH)
• RFK Jr. Blames Biden For Ukraine Conflict (RT)
• Putin Outplayed US Neocon Plan to Balkanize Russia (Sp.)
• Putin Has Chosen Response To Ukraine’s Incursion – Envoy (RT)
• US In Agony Over Ineffectiveness Of Sanctions – Moscow (RT)
• US Announces New Sanctions On Russia (RT)
• Trump Invited To J6 Awards Gala’ Celebrating January 6 Rioters (RT)
• ‘End of Empire’: US Ruling Class Fatally Out of Touch (Sp.)
• US Hesitant Over Kursk Incursion Aid – WaPo (RT)
• Ukrainian Attack On Kursk Is ‘Wrong’ – Hungary (RT)
• Hungary May Send Migrants To Brussels To Avenge Asylum Fine (ZH)
• SpaceX To Rescue Stranded Astronauts After NASA Dumps Boeing (ZH)
• ‘Darkness Descending’: Tucker Carlson Reacts To Telegram Founder’s Arrest (RT)

 

 

 

 

Weinstein

 

 

 

 

Gutfeld

 

 

Vivek Van
https://twitter.com/i/status/1826998015694913973

 

 

Dipshizzy
https://twitter.com/i/status/1827035655244828965

 

 

So good
https://twitter.com/i/status/1827172947280249138

 

 

 

 

They will have had elaborate conversations, and RFK will have made many demands, most of which Trump will have said yes to.

We haven’t forgotten those who say he’s an intel asset, but we’ll have to see..

• RFK Jr. Takes a Flame Thrower to the Entire System (Kevin Downey Jr)

Robert Kennedy Jr.’s highly anticipated speech on Friday was much more than the third-party candidate bowing out of the race and endorsing Trump. Kennedy laid waste to the deep state, big pharma, big food, the military-industrial complex, Democrat censorship, and how most, if not all, of these institutions may be working together for sinister reasons. Kennedy apologized for taking the stage 40 minutes late and then immediately jumped into action. “I attended my first Democratic convention at the age of 6 in 1960, and back then, the Democrats were the champions of the Constitution, of civil rights,” Kennedy stated. “The Democrats stood against authoritarianism, against censorship, against colonialism, imperialism, and unjust wars. We were the party of labor, of the working class. The Democrats were the party of government transparency and the champion of the environment.

Our party was the bulwark against big money interests and corporate power. True to its name, it was the party of democracy. As you know, I left that party in October because it had departed so dramatically from the core values that I grew up with.” That was the nicest thing Kennedy would say of his former party. “It had become the party of war, censorship, corruption, big pharma, big tech, big AG, and big money. When it abandoned democracy by canceling the primary to conceal the cognitive decline of the sitting president, I left the party to run as an Independent.” Kennedy then spoke of how the Democratic Party and the mockingbird media mudpuppies unitedly turned on him to chase him out of the 2024 election. After thanking the people who worked on his campaign, RFK Jr. took out his Zippo and went to work. “Now, in an honest system, I believe that I would have won the election, in a system that my father and my uncles thrived in.

A system with open debates with fair primaries… and with a truly independent media untainted by government propaganda and censorship, in a system of nonpartisan courts and election boards, everything would be different,” Kennedy declared. “I’m sorry to say that while democracy may still be alive at the grassroots, it has become little more than a slogan for our political institutions, for our media, and for our government, and most sadly of all for me, the Democratic Party.” “In the name of saving democracy, the Democratic Party set itself to dismantling it, lacking confidence in its candidate that, that its candidate could win in a fair election at the voting booth, the DNC waged continual legal warfare against both President Trump and myself.” He spoke of “DNC-aligned judges” whose job was to throw Kennedy and “other candidates off the ballot and to throw President Trump in jail.”

Kennedy railed over what he called a “primary that was rigged to prevent any serious challenge to President Biden” and the now infamous Trump-Biden debate, which he suggested was a “predictably bungled debate performance,” which resulted in “the palace coup against President Biden.” He then blamed “shadowy DNC operatives” for appointing Kamala Harris without a primary election. He lashed out at Harris for going 35 days without an unscripted interview. Kennedy then set his sights on Biden’s censorship campaign. When a US president colludes with or outright coerces media companies to censor political speech, it’s an attack on our most sacred right of free expression and that’s the very right upon which all of our other constitutional rights rest. President Biden mocked Vladimir Putin’s 88% landslide in the Russian elections, observing that Putin and his party controlled the Russian press, and that Putin prevented serious opponents from appearing on the ballot.

RFK lawfare

Read more …

Not yet.

• Trump Is Back On His A-Game (C.A. Skeet)

But even his critics agree that Trump is a master showman, an indefatigable fighter, and certainly not one to let inept campaign management derail his reelection. By getting in front of the cameras, by doing the hostile interviews, on a near daily basis, Trump has slowly but steadily blunted Harris’s momentum by the simple fact that people see him and they don’t see her. Trump is effectively regaining control of the narrative. Since Kamala refuses to outline her policy positions, Trump went ahead and outlined her policy positions for her online. He is defining her because she won’t define herself. Trump is regaining control of the narrative. While Trump’s interview at the National Association of Black Journalists has been criticized, the fact is that people will remember not so much the pissing match he got into with “moderator” Rachel Scott.

They’ll remember he had the courage to face a tough audience and a lying, prejudiced interviewer. He did the same thing with the Libertarians. Kamala will never, ever agree to speak to, much less sit down for an interview for, a gathering of the Federalist Society or the NRA. Trump is regaining control of the narrative. While Harris picked up endorsements of this union boss or that celebrity pop star, Trump picked up the endorsement of Robert Kennedy Jr., who just suspended his campaign to throw his support behind him. The optics of a Kennedy supporting a Republican presidential nominee are worth a hundred Cheneys and a thousand Hutchinsons supporting the Democrats. The strategic timing of the announcement, meant to disperse any lingering euphoria from the DNC, has Trump’s style written all over it. Trump is regaining control of the narrative.

When Trump controls the narrative, he’s unstoppable. And it looks like, as of now, he is at least partially successful in wresting it back from the Democrat media machine. To this end, Trump should rightly continue trying to win over traditionally Democrat minorities rather than waste too much time with independents. As I’ve previously pointed out in these pages, “independents” are mostly closet liberals, and the lowest informed ones at that. Wasting precious time and resources trying to make them see reason is like wasting a division trying to claw across a quarter mile of no-mans-land on the fields of Flanders. By appealing to Democrat minorities, Trump is bypassing this futile war of attrition and hitting them right in the trenches. To this day, Democrats still don’t know how to counter Trump’s inexplicable (to them) rise in popularity among minorities other than to scream “RACIST!” ever louder and to accuse these minorities of being race traitors.

You’ll always have your Oprah Winfreys, the billionaire sellout who spoke to the field workers from the loftiest porch on the DNC plantation, warning them against “the old tricks and tropes that are designed to distract us from what actually matters” by talking about…segregation in the 1950s. You’ll always have your John Shapiros, the almost-VP pick turned kapos guard, passed over solely because he is Jewish, who nonetheless stood before a frothing crowd of antisemites in Chicago and told them to vote for the pro-Hamas candidate. But, as evidenced by Trump’s rising popularity among minorities, their rank-and-file is slowly but surely souring on the empty promises of racist, divisive identity politics. If Trump can continue to (1) drive the narrative, (2) keep making inroads with minorities, and (3) maintain the same discipline that he showed in his debate against Biden in his upcoming debate(s) against Harris, he might be able to not only hold onto his slim lead, but to expand it beyond the margin of cheat.

Read more …

Mere hours after the Friday announcement, RFK was already doing a press-op about this.

• RFK Jr. & Trump To End War On Small Farms, Save Nation’s Food Supply Chain (ZH)

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. spent decades as an environmental lawyer fighting polluters and supported ‘green’ organizations for environmental justice. He is now setting his crosshairs on the pharmaceutical industry and cleaning up the nation’s food supply chain of ultra-processed foods and seed oils that poison consumers. He has determined that suspending his presidential campaign to team up with former President Trump will be necessary for the strongest success rate in making Americans healthier again, not through big pharma’s Ozempic shots but instead revitalizing small farms and shaking up corrupted federal agencies. Lifelong liberals like RFK Jr. backing Trump is one of the strongest indicators of just how extreme the ticket, unoriginal Vice President Kamala Harris and Democrats have become. Harris’ team recently announced their first proposed economic policy, which was rooted in communism and included disastrous price controls. It appears the far-left ticket is being advised and heavily influenced by Marxists.

Between RFK Jr’s special announcement earlier Friday and his speech at Trump’s packed campaign rally in Glendale, Arizona, the liberal with millions of supporters nationwide appears to have made a deal with Trump to join the campaign with a shot at waging war against corrupt federal health and food agencies, resetting the nation’s poisonous food supply chain, and launch a crusade against big pharma if the Trump team wins in November. RFK Jr. informed journalists at his special press conference in the early afternoon of Friday that America’s health crisis stems from ultra-processed foods pushed by giant food/pharma companies that have corrupted various federal agencies: “Autism rates were about one in 10,000 in my generation – in my kids Generation 1 in 34. I’ll repeat in California 1 and 22. Why are we letting this happen? Why are we allowing this to happen to our children? These are the most precious assets that we have in this country, how can we let this happen to them.

About 18% of American teens now have fatty liver disease, that’s like one out of every five – that disease when I was a kid only affected late stage alcoholics who were elderly. Cancer rates are skyrocketing in the Young and the old young. Adult cancers are up 70 79%. One in four American women is on anti-depressant medication. About 40% of teens have a mental health diagnosis and 15% of high schoolers are on Aderall, and half a million children on SSRIs. So what’s causing this suffering? I’ll name two culprits first and the worst is ultra-processed food. About 70% of American children’s diet is ultra-processed that means industrial manufacturing – these Foods consist primarily of processed sugar, ultra-processed grains, and seed oils. Scientists who, for many of them, formerly worked for the cigarette industry, which purchased all the big food companies in the 1970s and 80s, deployed thousands of scientists to figure out chemicals new chemicals to make the food more addictive, and these ingredients didn’t exist a 100 years ago.

Humans aren’t biologically adapted to eat them. Hundreds of these chemicals are now banned in Europe but ubiquitous in American processed foods. The second culprit is toxic chemicals in our food and our medicine and our environment pesticides food additives pharmaceutical drugs and toxic waste permeate every cell of our bodies. The Assault on our children’s cells and hormones is unrelenting – name just one problem many of these chemicals increase estrogen – because young children are ingesting so many of these hormone disruptors, America’s puberty rate is now occurring at age 10 to 13, which is six years earlier than girls were reaching puberty in 1900 our country has the earliest puberty rates of any continent on the Earth and no this isn’t because of better nutrition – this is not normal – breast cancer is also estrogen-driven and it now strikes one in eight women. We are mass poisoning all of our children.”

RFK Jr. then touched on the processed food industry lobbyists who have corrupted Washington, resulting in a food supply chain filled with poison that is killing Americans. He said several federal agencies that are supposed to protect consumers have also been corrupted. He pointed out that the processed food industry has been “destroying small farms, and they’re destroying our soils.”

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“The Biden White House repeatedly spurned Russia’s offers to settle this war peacefully..”

• RFK Jr. Blames Biden For Ukraine Conflict (RT)

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has accused US President Joe Biden of disrupting peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine in 2022, because Washington “wanted the war.” Kennedy made the statement on Friday during a speech in Arizona, where he announced the suspension of his third-party campaign for the White House in the swing state and endorsed Republican Donald Trump. According to Kennedy, Washington had deliberately drawn Moscow into the Ukraine war with the objective of regime change in Russia. “President Biden sent [then-UK Prime Minister] Boris Johnson to Ukraine to force President [Vladimir] Zelensky to tear up a peace agreement that he and the Russians had already signed, and the Russians were already withdrawing troops,” said the son of the 1960s-era Democratic US Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and nephew of President John F. Kennedy.

Moscow has previously blamed London for blocking the Ukraine peace deal. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in April that Kiev abandoned a proposed peace treaty with Russia, approved by negotiators in Istanbul, in 2022 under British pressure. Boris Johnson visited Kiev in April of that year, and reportedly told Zelensky to “just fight,” prompting the latter to pull out of the discussions. The former prime minister has since denied derailing the peace talks. Kennedy also accused the US government of staging a coup against the democratically-elected government of Ukraine in 2014 and rejecting the Minsk Agreements, a series of peace protocols negotiated between Ukraine, Russia and the European nations in 2019, pushing Kiev into a conflict with Moscow. “The Biden White House repeatedly spurned Russia’s offers to settle this war peacefully,” Kennedy claimed.

The US has sought to exhaust the Russian Army and degrade its capacity to fight, he added, arguing that the objectives of the US government “had nothing to do” with protecting Ukraine’s sovereignty. Kennedy has described Ukraine as a “victim of the West” and “a proxy in a geopolitical struggle initiated by the ambitions of the US neocons for American global hegemony.” He went on to explain that Trump’s promise to reopen negotiations with Russia and end the war as soon as he takes office were among the reasons for him to endorse the former president’s campaign. Kennedy made clear that he wasn’t formally ending his bid for the White House and called on his supporters to continue to back him in other states where their votes are unlikely to sway the outcome.

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“They feel that they’re in the position they were 30 years ago. And the world has changed.”

• Putin Outplayed US Neocon Plan to Balkanize Russia (Sp.)

During his August 23 speech in Arizona Robert F Kennedy Jr., a nephew of President John F. Kennedy, endorsed Republican nominee Donald Trump and accused the Biden administration and the US foreign policy establishment of provoking the Ukraine conflict. “Tiny Ukraine is a proxy in a geopolitical struggle initiated by the ambitions of the US neocons for American global hegemony,” Kennedy said. “In April 2022, we wanted the war. President Biden sent [then-British prime minister] Boris Johnson to Ukraine to force President [Volodymyr] Zelensky to tear up a peace agreement that he and the Russians had already signed,” he added. “That peace agreement would have brought peace to the region.” Kennedy noted that Donald Trump’s decision to reopen peace negotiations with President Vladimir Putin on Ukraine “alone would justify my support for [Trump’s] campaign.”

Kennedy “stated correctly the neocons are in control of [US] foreign policy,” Earl Rasmussen, a retired lieutenant colonel with over 20 years in the US Army and international consultant, told Sputnik. “We basically are looking for confrontation.” The commentatior said Kennedy has a real grasp on the ongoing situation and the historical background of the unfolding conflict. “Biden is not interested in peace,” Rasmussen said. “They’re not interested in democracy. They don’t care about Ukraine. And Georgia, for that matter, has always been looked at as a mechanism to further encircle and weaken Russia,” the expert said. Washington made preparations for the proxy war with Russia in Ukraine for years, the retired lieutenant colonel argued. He said the scheme probably originated in the 1990s, when the infamous ‘Wolfowitz doctrine’, aimed at retaining Washington’s sole superpower status, was formulated. The US-backed 2014 coup d’etat in Kiev was the continuation of this policy, the expert said.

“Now that we know that Minsk agreements were never meant to be implemented based on statements made by [former German chancellor Angela] Merkel and [former French president François] Hollande,” Rasmussen said. “We also know up to 50,000 Ukrainian troops were trained by NATO during that eight year period,” he added. “So this is a planned thing.” Anti-Russia sanctions, intended to halt Moscow’s energy cooperation with Western Europe, and the Nord Stream sabotage were not formulated overnight, the pundit said. The end goal was to foment regime change in Moscow and then “balkanize Russia,” he believes. “I think Putin saw that,” Rasmussen said, adding that the West completely underestimated Russia. “They didn’t understand the Russian people and the Russian culture and how the Russian would react to the situation. I think they thought Putin would just back down.” Rasmussen condemned the arrogance of US foreign policy: “They feel that they’re in the position they were 30 years ago. And the world has changed.”

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“This is impossible. There will be no buffer zone on the territory of Russia..”

• Putin Has Chosen Response To Ukraine’s Incursion – Envoy (RT)

President Vladimir Putin has decided on how to respond to Kiev’s incursion into Russia’s Kursk Region and everyone responsible will undoubtedly be punished, Moscow’s Ambassador to the US Anatoly Antonov told journalists on Thursday. Earlier this month, Kiev launched its largest cross-border attack to date on Russia, sending in some of its best-equipped and most experienced soldiers in to Kursk Region in an attempt to seize Russian territory. The Ukrainian government has expressed hope that the operation will relieve pressure on its forces elsewhere on the front line, and strengthen Kiev’s position at eventual peace talks with Moscow. However, Russia’s Defense Ministry has reported that the incursion has effectively been halted and, while Kiev’s troops still hold a number of territories in the region, they have been experiencing heavy casualties throughout the fighting.

Moscow has estimated Ukrainian losses at some 4,700 servicemen as well as hundreds of pieces of heavy weaponry, including 68 tanks, since the start of the incursion. Commenting on Moscow’s future steps in response to the invasion, the ambassador stated that president Putin has already “made a decision.” He also said that he is “firmly convinced that everyone will be severely punished for what happened in Kursk Region.” Kiev has stated that it intends to create a “buffer zone” through its incursion into Russian territory. These plans have also been confirmed by Pentagon Deputy Press Secretary Sabrina Singh. Antonov, however, insisted that the Ukrainian operation will fail in establishing this zone. “This is impossible. There will be no buffer zone on the territory of Russia,” the envoy stressed.

He also claimed that Washington could put an end to Kiev’s incursion into Kursk Region with “a snap of the fingers” but that it apparently doesn’t deem such a move “expedient or necessary.” “I am firmly convinced that Kiev does nothing without an okay from its [Western] masters,” Antonov told TASS. “Given how many advisers are around Zelensky, and what power is given to Zelensky’s regime, to say that [Washington] does not know about anything… [Kiev] simply would not dare to lift a finger, to point a machine gun in our direction without Washington’s consent! Or at least they wouldn’t be sure that any of their actions would be supported by Western countries,” the ambassador added.

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“The US and its allies have imposed a record 22,000 sanctions on Moscow since 2014..”

• US In Agony Over Ineffectiveness Of Sanctions – Moscow (RT)

Washington’s latest round of sanctions against Moscow is aimed at underscoring US Vice President Kamala Harris’ “anti-Russian essence,” Ambassador Anatoly Antonov has said, dismissing the “fruitless” measures as ineffectual. On Friday, the US State and Treasury departments announced additional restrictions against 400 individuals and companies in Russia, Asia, Europe and the Middle East which Washington accuses of supporting Moscow’s military-industrial supply chains. “The administration [of US President Joe Biden] is in agony. The fruitless Russophobic ‘salvos’ are multiplying,” Antonov wrote in a Telegram post on Saturday. By introducing the new sanctions, the White House is trying to underline its “anti-Russian essence against the backdrop of the boiling election campaign,” he stressed.

“The negative aspects of US actions are obvious to everyone. The administration’s reckless steps lead to a crisis, but not to something creative,” the ambassador said. The restrictions “are harming not only domestic consumers, but also America’s partners in third countries,” he added. “It is obvious that in order to achieve true independence in the economic sphere, it is high time to abandon the hegemony of the dollar in the international monetary and financial system,” Antonov stressed. The US and its allies have imposed a record 22,000 sanctions on Moscow since 2014, when Crimea rejoined Russia and a conflict between Ukraine and the Donbass republics broke out as the result of a Western-backed coup in Kiev. Moscow deemed the curbs illegal, responding with travel bans on Western officials and other moves.

“Sanctions against Russia have been so multifaceted that we essentially don’t care what else the administration comes up with to ‘punish the Russian people’,” the ambassador pointed out. According to Antonov, the Russian authorities will act “to ensure that our citizens feel at ease and do not look back at American attacks.” Earlier this year, the Wall Street Journal said that the “biggest ever sanctions” have failed to stop Russia’s military operation in Ukraine. Western officials have been forced to acknowledge that the restrictions “hit more slowly than they hoped,” the outlet stressed.

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And what do you do when sanctions don’t work?

• US Announces New Sanctions On Russia (RT)

The US government has sanctioned almost 400 individuals and companies in Russia and around the world, including Russian Defense Minister Andrey Belousov’s son and his wife. Departments of State and Treasury announced the measure on Friday, on the eve of Ukraine’s independence day, to signal Washington’s ongoing support to Kiev in the conflict with Moscow. The sanctions also extended to entities and individuals in Asia, Europe and the Middle East. In keeping with the practice of sanctioning family members of Russian officials, the US has blacklisted Pavel Belousov and his wife Yevgenya, as well as a consulting company in their ownership. Belousov’s father Andrey became the Russian defense minister in May.

“Companies, financial institutions, and governments around the world need to ensure they are not supporting Russia’s military-industrial supply chains,” Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo said in a statement. According to the Treasury, there are “almost a dozen distinct networks” consisting of over 100 individuals and entities across 16 jurisdictions, including China, Switzerland, Türkiye, and the United Arab Emirates. Notably, 18 companies based in Hong Kong have been accused of ties to the Russian military industry. Treasury and State also warned financial institutions in other countries to “be cautious about any dealings with overseas branches or subsidiaries of Russian financial institutions,” including those that have not yet been sanctioned.

Friday’s designations mean that any property or interests in property of the listed individuals, directly or indirectly, have been blocked and must be reported to the government. Any transactions between US citizens – or foreign nationals within the US – are forbidden. Washington and its allies have placed over 22,000 sanctions on Russia since 2014, when Moscow responded to the US-backed coup in Kiev by welcoming Crimea’s reunification. Russia has called the blacklist illegitimate and responded with travel bans for Western officials and activists.

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“While the announcement lists Trump as an “invited guest speaker,” the former president will not attend the event in person..”

“..inclined to pardon many of them.” “I can’t say for every single one, because a couple of them, probably they got out of control..”

• Trump Invited To J6 Awards Gala’ Celebrating January 6 Rioters (RT)

Former US President Donald Trump has been linked to a gala event aimed at raising funds for a group of January 6 Capitol rioters who are currently on trial. The ‘J6 Awards Gala’ at Trump’s Bedminster Golf Club will be held on September 5 to “honor and celebrate” the defendants, with ticket options starting at $1,500. A crowd of Trump’s supporters descended on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021 in an attempt to prevent lawmakers from certifying what they believed to be Joe Biden’s fraudulent victory in the presidential election the previous November. The demonstration quickly devolved into a riot, with US Capitol Police taking hours to restore order. Biden and his fellow Democrats characterized the events as an “insurrection.” The authorities arrested and charged 1,358 participants, most of whom received misdemeanor trespassing offenses, although 127 have faced more serious charges.

The gala announcement appeared on the website of ‘The America Project’ political group, and invited people to “join us for an unforgettable evening as we honor and celebrate the twenty defendants who contributed to the powerful ‘Justice For All’ song.” The latter was recorded last year by a group of defendants comprising the so-called ‘January 6th Prison Choir.’ The track features them singing the Pledge of Allegiance and the Star-Spangled Banner, overlaid with excerpts of Trump’s speeches. The event is meant as a “night of recognition, solidarity, and support” as well as a “crucial fundraiser to provide much-needed assistance to the January 6th defendants who continue to face significant challenges,” the organizers explained. While the announcement lists Trump as an “invited guest speaker,” the former president will not attend the event in person, the New York Times reported, citing an unnamed person familiar with the politician’s plans.

In a post on his Truth Social platform in March, Trump vowed: “My first acts as your next President will be to Close the Border, DRILL, BABY, DRILL, and Free the January 6 Hostages being wrongfully imprisoned!” The Republican has repeatedly referred to the rioters as “political prisoners” and “hostages.” At a CNN town hall event last year, Trump revealed that he was “inclined to pardon many of them.” “I can’t say for every single one, because a couple of them, probably they got out of control,” he added. The Republican presidential nominee himself is facing federal charges for allegedly instigating the riot by urging his supporters to “fight like hell” against congressional certification of Biden’s victory. Trump’s lawyers insist that he was well within his rights to make such a statement, noting that he also encouraged his supporters to act “peacefully and patriotically.”

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“It’s almost like we’ve wandered into a Tower of Babble and come out on the other side babbling…”

• ‘End of Empire’: US Ruling Class Fatally Out of Touch (Sp.)

America’s political class is unable to address or even speak to voters’ most pressing needs. “The political class, Washington, DC, people inside the Beltway – they’ve grown more and more estranged from everyday people like you and me,” claimed journalist Jon Jeter on Sputnik’s The Critical Hour program Friday. The author joined hosts Garland Nixon and Wilmer Leon to break down Democratic Party presidential candidate Kamala Harris’s acceptance speech on the final night of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, during which she advocated a hawkish foreign policy to the exclusion of focus on the material needs of working-class Americans. “I thought that speech was ridiculous and if I were a betting man I would say that it lost the election for the Democrats in November,” said Jeter.

“I don’t know who she thinks her audience was when she attacks Vladimir Putin. If I may paraphrase Muhammad Ali, Vladimir Putin ain’t never called me the N-word.” “Most people, particularly in the states and particularly the people who she’s depending on to win this election, Blacks and particularly Black men, particularly in Philadelphia and Detroit and Milwaukee – I don’t think they care so much about Kim Jong Un, about Vladimir Putin, about the threat from China,” he continued. “I think they care a lot about jobs, wages, debt reduction, things like that. So I thought that speech was almost odd and that it seemed to lack self-awareness about exactly who the Democrats are and who they need.” The analyst claimed the Democratic party is in the habit of abusing its voters, constantly attacking its activist base.

“I think people are ultimately going to feel like they’re being gaslit,” said Nixon, claiming voters are more likely to be concerned with inflation and the cost of living. The media outlet Bloomberg calculated the rise in the cost of basic goods and services in 2023, finding that the cost of natural gas has risen by 29% while the costs of groceries and electricity have risen by 25%. “I have to admit, I have very, very low expectations of our political class,” said Jeter. “This was a stunning speech for its lack of self-awareness. The Democrats’ problem is that they are unresponsive, wholly unresponsive to their base, to labor unions.” “It’s almost like we’ve wandered into a Tower of Babble and come out on the other side babbling. We don’t even speak the same language anymore. This is just a bewildering turn of affairs which I can only attribute to the end of empire.”

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“Washington is still assessing how Kiev’s offensive “fits into their strategic objectives on the battlefield itself..”

• US Hesitant Over Kursk Incursion Aid – WaPo (RT)

President Joe Biden’s administration is not convinced by Ukraine’s strategy in Kursk Region and fears a possible escalation with Moscow, the Washington Post reported on Saturday, citing sources. Kiev launched its largest incursion to date into internationally-recognized Russian territory on August 6. The Russian Defense Ministry said the advance into Kursk Region had been halted; however, Kiev’s forces continue to occupy a number of settlements there. Kiev has said it intends to establish a “buffer zone” on Russian soil and has touted the land it occupies as a potential bargaining chip for future peace talks. Moscow, however, ruled out negotiations with Kiev following the incursion, citing “indiscriminate” attacks on civilians by Ukrainian troops. The US remains unsure whether to help Kiev hold and perhaps even add to the land it now occupies, an unnamed diplomat told the Washington Post.

The Pentagon has, however asked the Ukrainians what they need to make their offensive a success, US officials have claimed, adding that no concrete decisions have been made. The Ukrainian Armed Forces has lost over 5,000 soldiers since the start of the incursion, as well as 69 tanks, 27 infantry fighting vehicles, 55 APCs, 350 armored combat vehicles, 34 artillery units, five anti-aircraft missile systems, and 11 MLRS launchers (including three US-made HIMARS), among other pieces of heavy equipment, the Defense Ministry reported in an update on Friday. The US announced the same day that $125 million worth of supplies, including howitzer and artillery ammunition, TOW antitank missiles, and unmanned aerial systems and ammunition would be provided to Ukraine.

As discussions continue over new aid amid the Kursk offensive, however, Washington reportedly says it’s uncertain of Ukraine’s goals in seizing territory inside Russia, and has no idea if it intends to hold or expand upon the territory it has seized. “They may have a plan, but they’re not sharing it with us,” the paper wrote, citing an anonymous US official. Washington is still assessing how Kiev’s offensive “fits into their strategic objectives on the battlefield itself,” Pentagon deputy spokesperson Sabrina Singh said on Thursday. “We’re still working and still have some questions,” she added.

US Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said earlier this week that Washington’s ammunition stockpiles are now “empty” due to aid provided to Ukraine. In June, Trump also made it clear that he would stop donating tens of billions of dollars’ worth of handouts to Ukraine. While US and Ukrainian officials “publicly tout a strong relationship”, the paper wrote, their ties have been “repeatedly tested by frustrations and fundamental disagreements about strategy and the level of support the West should provide.” Russian Ambassador to the US Anatoly Antonov claimed earlier this week that Washington could put an end to Kiev’s incursion with “a snap of the fingers” but that it apparently hasn’t deemed such a move “expedient or necessary.”

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“Anything that stands in the way of a diplomatic settlement of the conflict between Moscow and Kiev is “wrong..”

• Ukrainian Attack On Kursk Is ‘Wrong’ – Hungary (RT)

Hungary does not approve of Ukraine’s incursion into Russia’s Kursk Region because the government in Budapest remains “pro-peace,” Gergely Gulyas, the head of the Hungarian prime minister’s office, has said. Gulyas became the most high-ranking Hungarian official to date to comment on the ongoing Ukrainian attack when asked about the issue during a briefing on Thursday. “Ukraine is not only defending, but also attacking. We want a ceasefire and peace,” Gulyas stated. Anything that stands in the way of a diplomatic settlement of the conflict between Moscow and Kiev is “wrong,” including a “spillover of the hostilities into Russian territory,” he added. Gulyas’ statement on the Ukrainian incursion into Kursk Region is in stark contrast to those from other officials in the EU and NATO.

The bloc’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, said he had “reiterated the EU’s full support to the [Ukrainian] people’s fight” when he met with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba last week. Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo has insisted that “Ukraine has the right to self-defense and it is clear that they can do their operation in Kursk,” while Estonian Prime Minister Kristen Michal has wished luck to the Ukrainian troops involved in the attack. Hungary has taken a neutral stance since the escalation between Russia and Ukraine in February 2022. It has provided Kiev with humanitarian aid, but has refused to send weapons, allow other EU states to ship military supplies through its territory, or to train Ukrainian troops, despite strong pressure from Washington and Brussels. The government of Viktor Orban has also criticized EU’s sanctions, arguing that they hurt the bloc more than Russia.

Moscow has repeatedly voiced readiness for dialogue with Kiev throughout the conflict. However, shortly after the launch of the incursion into Kursk Region, Russian President Vladimir Putin stressed that there can be no talk about negotiations with Ukraine. Russia’s Defense Ministry said on Thursday that Ukraine has already lost more than 4,700 troops and several hundred units of military equipment, including 68 tanks and 53 armored personnel carriers, since the start of the incursion in Kursk Region on August 6.

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“We should find an agreement as soon as possible because we wouldn’t like to pay large amounts on a daily basis,” Gulyas said. “But if Brussels wants to take in migrants, we can help.”

• Hungary May Send Migrants To Brussels To Avenge Asylum Fine (ZH)

Several years ago, Texas had a brilliant idea: take the millions of illegal immigrant that were flooding its territory as a result of policies adopted in faraway places like DC, and bus them to places like New York and DC, other so-called sanctuary cities and, best of all, Martha’s Vineyard where those who run New York and DC tend to go on vacation. The result was an immediate revulsion by the false virtue-signaling NIMBY crowd, which cried foul at having to suffer the consequences of its actions. Turns out Texas’ idea was so good it is now being adopted across the Atlantic, where another illegal alien invasion has been taking place for the past decade, slowly replacing the indigenous population with millions of immigrants from northern Africa and the middle east.

Now, one European country has decided it also has had enough: Hungary suggested that it might – like Texas – start transporting migrants who show up at its border straight to Brussels, unless it can resolve a dispute with the European Union on penalties for its asylum policies, Bloomberg reported. The European Court of Justice has slapped a €200 million ($223 million) penalty, plus an extra €1 million daily fine, on the country for Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s non-compliance with the court’s earlier judgment on the protection of asylum seekers. Orban already promised retaliation in June for the ruling, one of several issues clouding the start of his stint in the rotating presidency of the EU in the second half of 2024. Negotiations with the European Commission will start in September, Gergely Gulyas, the minister in charge of the prime minister’s office, told reporters in Budapest Thursday.

Should those talks fail, Hungary will start handing migrants “one-way tickets to Brussels,” Gulyas said. “We should find an agreement as soon as possible because we wouldn’t like to pay large amounts on a daily basis,” Gulyas said. “But if Brussels wants to take in migrants, we can help.” Though Gulyas provided no details on how such a scheme would work, the idea echoes disputes not only among US states over migrants – like those being bused to New York from the Texas border – but also elsewhere in Europe. In the UK, socialist Prime Minister Keir Starmer has vowed his new Labour government would scrap predecessor Rishi Sunak’s plan to deport asylum-seekers to Rwanda.

Separately, Hungary was criticized by human rights groups this week for withdrawing state-funded shelter from Ukrainian refugees arriving from regions not directly affected by the fighting on the frontlines with Russia. A group of Hungarians from Ukraine’s western Transcarpathia region temporarily became homeless after the move, though Gulyas said aid groups helped provide accommodations for them. The EU’s executive arm is looking into the decree, according to a spokesperson but said the EU is united in providing protections, including accommodation, for those fleeing the conflict.

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Another 6 months… For what was a weeklong trip… Bye bye Boeing..

• SpaceX To Rescue Stranded Astronauts After NASA Dumps Boeing (ZH)

NASA said it has selected Elon Musk’s SpaceX to bring home the US astronauts who were forced to extend their stay at the International Space Station because of the latest debacle plaguing the woke DEI disaster that is Boeing, whose space capsule suffered major technical issues. Boeing’s spacecraft will return without people on board, the US space agency said during a Saturday news conference announcing its decision, in which it said that it was too risky to bring two astronauts back to Earth in Boeing’s troubled new capsule. What should have been a weeklong test flight for the pair will now last more than eight months. The contingency plan means that NASA astronauts Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Sunita “Suni” Williams will hitch a ride home on SpaceX’s rival Crew Dragon capsule during a mission slated to launch in late September. That would put them back on US soil in February, when that capsule is slated to return and months later than originally planned.

Their empty Starliner capsule will undock in a week or two and attempt to return on autopilot. The seasoned pilots have been stuck at the International Space Station since the beginning of June. A cascade of vexing thruster failures and helium leaks in the new capsule marred their trip to the space station, and they ended up in a holding pattern as engineers conducted tests and debated what to do about the trip back. As Starliner’s test pilots, the pair should have overseen this critical last leg of the journey, with touchdown in the U.S. desert. It was a blow to Boeing, adding to the safety concerns plaguing the company on its airplane side. Boeing had counted on Starliner’s first crew trip to revive the troubled program after years of delays and ballooning costs. The company had insisted Starliner was safe based on all the recent thruster tests both in space and on the ground.

Retired Navy captains with previous long-duration spaceflight experience, Wilmore, 61, and Williams, 58, anticipated surprises when they accepted the shakedown cruise of a new spacecraft, although not quite to this extent. Before their June 5 launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida, they said their families bought into the uncertainty and stress of their professional careers decades ago. During their lone orbital news conference last month, they said they had trust in the thruster testing being conducted. They had no complaints, they added, and enjoyed pitching in with space station work. Wilmore’s wife, Deanna, was equally stoic in an interview earlier this month with WVLT-TV in Knoxville, Tennessee, their home state. She was already bracing for a delay until next February: “You just sort of have to roll with it.” There were no other options.

The SpaceX capsule currently parked at the space station is reserved for the four residents who have been there since March. They will return in late September, their stay extended a month by the Starliner dilemma. NASA said it would be unsafe to squeeze two more into the capsule, except in an emergency. The docked Russian Soyuz capsule is even tighter, capable of flying only three — two of them Russians wrapping up a yearlong stint. So Wilmore and Williams will wait for SpaceX’s next taxi flight. It’s due to launch in late September with two astronauts instead of the usual four for a routine six-month stay. NASA yanked two to make room for Wilmore and Williams on the return flight in late February. NASA said no serious consideration was given to asking SpaceX for a quick stand-alone rescue. Last year, the Russian Space Agency had to rush up a replacement Soyuz capsule for three men whose original craft was damaged by space junk. The switch pushed their mission beyond a year, a U.S. space endurance record still held by Frank Rubio.

Starliner’s woes began long before its latest flight. Bad software fouled the first test flight without a crew in 2019, prompting a do-over in 2022. Then parachute and other issues cropped up, including a helium leak in the capsule’s propellant system that nixed a launch attempt in May. The leak eventually was deemed to be isolated and small enough to pose no concern. But more leaks sprouted following liftoff, and five thrusters also failed. All but one of those small thrusters restarted in flight. But engineers remain perplexed as to why some thruster seals appear to swell, obstructing the propellant lines, then revert to their normal size.These 28 thrusters are vital. Besides needed for space station rendezvous, they keep the capsule pointed in the right direction at flight’s end as bigger engines steer the craft out of orbit. Coming in crooked could result in catastrophe.

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“POV: It’s 2030 in Europe and you’re being executed for liking a meme..”

• ‘Darkness Descending’: Tucker Carlson Reacts To Telegram Founder’s Arrest (RT)

The arrest of Telegram founder Pavel Durov in France is a warning to platforms that stand up to censorship, American journalist and political commentator Tucker Carlson has said. According to French media, the Russian-born entrepreneur was detained at Paris-Le Bourget Airport on Saturday and will appear in court on Sunday evening. The French authorities had reportedly issued an arrest warrant, arguing that insufficient moderation allows for Telegram to be widely used by criminals. The news of Durov’s apparent prosecution has raised concerns online, including suggestions that it could be politically motivated.

“Pavel Durov left Russia when the government tried to control his social media company, Telegram. But in the end, it wasn’t Putin who arrested him for allowing the public to exercise free speech,” Carlson wrote on X (formerly Twitter) on Saturday. “It was a Western country, a Biden administration ally and enthusiastic NATO member, that locked him away.” Durov’s arrest is “a living warning to any platform owner who refuses to censor the truth at the behest of governments and intel agencies,” Carlson argued. “Darkness is descending fast on the formerly free world.”

Carlson recorded a rare interview with Durov in April, in which the Telegram owner spoke about his disagreements with the Russian government, as well as the pressure he faced in the US. He said that the American government had wanted him to set up a surveillance “backdoor” on his messaging service, and he refused. X owner Elon Musk also condemned the reported arrest. “POV: It’s 2030 in Europe and you’re being executed for liking a meme,” he wrote in a comment to the news story. Telegram was launched in 2013 and currently has more than 950 million active monthly users. Durov is a native of St. Petersburg, Russia, but has been mostly been living in the UAE since the mid-2010s. He became a French and an Emirati citizen in 2021.

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Houthi
https://twitter.com/i/status/1827074505505960328

 

 

Bad parrot
https://twitter.com/i/status/1827284727381778524

 

 

Collie

 

 

Cup

 

 

Support the Automatic Earth in wartime with Paypal, Bitcoin and Patreon.

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle August 24 2024

Aug 242024
 
 August 24, 2024  Posted by at 8:50 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , ,  50 Responses »


Salvador Dali Galatea of the Spheres 1952

 

• I Throw My Support Behind Donald Trump – RFK Jr (ZH)
• The 2024 DNC In 2 Words – ‘Not Trump’ (ZH)
• RFK Jr Addresses The Nation (ZH)
• Why Kamala Harris Won’t Sit For An Interview (Bridge)
• End of Hoaxes (Jim Kunstler)
• CIA Endorses Harris as Democrats Promise More War, Foreign Intervention (Sp.)
• US Running Out Of Ammo – Trump (RT)
• US Preparing To Lift Ban On Strikes Deep Inside Russia – Moscow (RT)
• India Is Not Neutral But Stands For Peace, Modi Tells Zelensky (RT)
• Crackdown on Ukraine’s Largest Church Is ‘Full-fledged Satanism’ – Medvedev (RT)
• Ukraine Sells Its Orthodox Heritage Out to West. But Wait, It’s Russian (Sp.)
• Confusion And Chaos At Factory That Built Two Doomed 737 MAX Planes (ZH)
• Tale of Two Pipelines… Europe Loses, China Gains (SCF)
• US House Oversight Asks TSA Why Tulsi Gabbard Is on Terror Watchlist (Sp.)
• JK Rowling Reportedly Sued by Olympic Boxer Over Gender Criticism (Turley)

 

 

 

 

https://twitter.com/i/status/1826765855008719103

 

 

https://twitter.com/i/status/1826835677759013348
https://twitter.com/i/status/1826812669640462518

 

 

Vivek will be a force

 

 

RFK jr

 

 

 

 

 

 

Who needs a policy if you hate Donald Trump?

• I Throw My Support Behind Donald Trump – RFK Jr (ZH)

“Democrats have become the party of war, censorship, corruption, big pharma, big tech, big ag, and big money wanting to abandon democracy by canceling the primary to conceal the cognitive decline of the sitting president. I left the party to run as an independent… The DNC and its media organs engineered a surge of popularity for VP Harris based upon nothing. No policies, no interviews, no debates. Only smoke and mirrors.””A Chicago circus that is based on NOTHING. Who needs a policy if you hate Donald Trump?” “How did the Democratic Party choose a candidate that has never done an interview or debate during the entire election cycle?” Kennedy asked. “We know the answer: They did it by weaponizing the government agencies. They did it by abandoning democracy. They did it by suing the opposition and by disenfranchising American voters.

What most alarms me isn’t how the Democratic Party conducts its internal affairs or runs its candidates. What alarms me is the resort to censorship and media control and the weaponization of the federal agencies.” Kennedy refuses to be a spoiler… “Many months ago, I promised the American people that I would withdraw from the race if I became a spoiler… In my heart, I no longer believe that I have a realistic path to electoral victory in the face of this relentless, systematic censorship and media control.” “I am simply suspending it and not ending it. My name will remain on the ballot in most states. I encourage you to vote for me. In an honest system, I believe that I would have won the election. After all, the polls consistently showed me beating each of the other candidates. In about 10 battleground states where my presence would be a spoiler, I’m going to remove my name.”

[..] I throw my support behind Donald Trump.” Kennedy said that in a series of meetings with Trump and his team, he realized he shared more in common with the former president than he thought. He compared their potential partnership to President Lincoln’s famous “Team of Rivals,” which saw him stock his Cabinet with former foes. “In a series of long, intense discussions, I was surprised to discover that we are aligned on many key issues. In those meetings, he suggested that we join forces as a unity party. We talked about Abraham Lincoln’s team of rivals. That arrangement would allow us to disagree publicly and privately and fiercely if need be on issues over which we differ while working together on the existential issues upon which we are in concordance.” “I was a ferocious critic of many of the policies during his first administration, and there are still issues and approaches upon which we continue to have very serious differences.”

“But we are aligned with each other on other key issues like ending the forever wars, ending the childhood disease epidemics, securing the border, protecting freedom of speech, unraveling the corporate capture of our regulatory agencies, getting the US intelligence agencies out of the business of propagandizing and censoring and surveilling Americans and interfering with our elections.” “Suspending my candidacy is a heartrending decision for me. But I’m convinced that it’s the best hope or ending the Ukraine War and ending the chronic disease epidemic that is eroding our nation’s vitality from the inside and for finally protecting free speech.” “I feel a moral obligation to use this opportunity to save millions of American children above all things.” Most notably, RFK Jr. admitted in front of the nation that he attempted to contact VP Harris first and that she neither wanted to talk or meet with him is a strong message to Independent voters:

“Following my first discussion with President Trump, I tried unsuccessfully to open similar discussions with Vice President Harris. Vice President Harris declined to meet or even to speak with me.” “Democrats want nothing to do with you, Republicans will at least give you a seat at the table.” RFK addressed details on the Russia-Ukraine war (via Kyle Becker): “We have pushed Russia closer to China and Iran. We are closer to the brink of nuclear exchange than at any time since 1962. And the Neocons in the White House don’t seem to care at all.” “Our moral authority and our economy are in shambles. And the war gave rise to the emergence of BRICS, which now threatens to replace the dollar as the global reserve currency.” “This is a first class calamity for our country.” “Judging by her bellicose, belligerent speech last night in Chicago, we can assume that President Harris will be an enthusiastic for this and other Neocon military adventures.”

“President Trump says he will reopen negotiations with President Putin and end the war overnight as soon as he becomes president.” “This alone would justify my support for his campaign.” “Last summer, it looked like no candidate was willing to negotiate a quick end to the Ukraine War, to tackle the chronic disease epidemic, to protect free speech, our Constitutional freedoms, to clean corporate influence out of our government or to defy the Neocons on their agenda of endless military adventurism.” “But now, one of the two candidates has adopted these issues as his own to the point where he has asked to enlist me in his administration.” “I am speaking, of course, of Donald Trump.”

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‘Kamala Harris, for the people.’

• The 2024 DNC In 2 Words – ‘Not Trump’ (ZH)

Objectively, if prediction sites can be trusted in any way (perhaps more so than biased polls), the last four days of speeches, musical performances, and delegate celebrations were a ‘failure’ of sorts for the Democratic Party as during the DNC, Kamala Harris odds of success in November dropped while Trump’s improved (though we note the incumbent VP remains a favorite)… Perhaps, ‘we the people’ realized that the goal of the whole week was for party lawmakers, community leaders, past presidents, and cultural figures to convince Americans that Kamala Harris is not Joe Biden… and has not been in The White House for the last almost-four-years… is the not the lowest-approval-rated VP in history… and is not in any way responsible, or tied to any of the policies that left the vast majority of Americans questioning the direction of the country just a week or two before the mainstream media anointed her ‘Mamala’

Most directed pointed attacks at former President Donald Trump, tying his candidacy and campaign to the controversial Project 2025, which Trump has disavowed, while illustrating differences between a potential second Trump term and a Harris White House. While light on specific domestic and foreign policy discussions, the convention highlighted the Democratic Party’s commitment to ensuring abortion access after the 2022 Dobbs decision overthrew Roe v. Wade. For four straight days, protesters rallied in the streets against the Biden/Harris administration’s support for Israel during the Israel–Hamas war, pushing for a Palestinian speaker at the Chicago convention. As Jacob Burg and Nathan Worcester detail below via The Epoch Times, here are the key takeaways from the 2024 Democratic National Convention.

After securing enough delegate support to become the party’s presidential nominee earlier this month, the convention served as a coronation ceremony for Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. With a little more than 70 days remaining in the election, Harris is moving fast to define herself, her platform, and her vision for America. Speaking about her family and their impact on her life, she said it was those who loved and believed in her the most that “told us we could be anything and do anything.” In her acceptance speech, Harris described her parents meeting at a civil rights gathering and attorneys like Thurgood Marshall and Constance Baker Motley, who inspired her to become a lawyer. When Harris’ best friend revealed sexual abuse by a parent, Harris set out to be a prosecutor.

“And every day in the courtroom, I stood proudly before a judge, and I said five words, ‘Kamala Harris, for the people.’” She added, “And to be clear, my entire career. I’ve only had one client, the people.” “On behalf of the people, on behalf of every American, regardless of party, race, gender or the language your grandmother speaks … I accept your nomination to be president of the United States of America,” Harris said. In a coalition-building effort as her campaign inches closer to election day, Harris vowed to unite a divided country. “Our nation, with this election, has a precious, fleeting opportunity to move past the bitterness, cynicism, and divisive battles of the past, a chance to chart a new way forward. Not as members of any one party or faction, but as Americans.”

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Articles were updated on the fly last night as things happened. This is one of the older parts of the opening article.

• RFK Jr Addresses The Nation (ZH)

While Richard Truesdell and Keith Lehmann point out that RFK Jr. was never a serious candidate, he had a famous name (to those of us old enough to remember), a tinge of legitimacy, and a wealthy billionaire running mate to keep the train going. It wasn’t enough to reach office but it got his foot in the door after RFK Jr. was shunned by Democrat Party insiders in their initial effort to prop up husk of a president, Joe Biden. Now they are stuck with Biden’s insurance policy, Kamala Harris. It terrified the Dems to have RFK Jr. in the running, so they rigged the rules, banned him from state ballots, and vilified him as extreme. And to dampen his impact on the Harris-Walz ticket, after trying to deny him ballot access and remove RFK Jr. from the state ballots he made his way to, Democrats will now attempt to keep him on ballots to hurt Trump. Such hypocrites.

He’s an environmental attorney, about as Lefty Democrat as you can get! He was expected to capitulate, kiss the crown, and get in line with everyone else. Instead, he went rogue. He showed them by unexpectedly running as an Independent. In exchange for his potential endorsement, what can Trump promise? A cabinet post? Being named director of the FBI to clean up that mess? Or ironically, heading up the CIA? Maybe after six decades, we’ll find out exactly what was the role of the agency in assassinating his uncle and if it had any role in his own father’s assassination. He’s now rumored to be ready to endorse Trump and is expected to announce his campaign suspension in Phoenix, where Trump is scheduled to hold a rally nearby. Coincidence? Unlikely. If this happens, it will take much of the post-DNC momentum away from Harris-Walz and focus attention on the PR value of RFK Jr.’s endorsement.

Imagine the son of RFK and the nephew of JFK, endorsing a Republican candidate for the presidency, Donald Trump no less. It will be a net positive gain for Trump, although not much and only for so long. But it could make all the difference in a race that’s expected to be tight in the all-important swing states—especially Pennsylvania. After spending millions to keep him off the ballot, the Democratic National Committee released a memo Friday dismissing the potential impact Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s endorsement of Donald Trump will have on the presidential race. The DNC claimed, without evidence, that the only reason Kennedy was in the race was to be a spoiler candidate to help former President Trump, but derided him as “a near-negligible factor” with “no meaningful base of support.” The DNC memo purported, again without evidence, that Trump was “at a low point and acting out of desperation.”

“Embracing RFK Jr. now —when he has nothing to offer but months of disqualifying revelations—is not a decision a campaign makes when they’re acting from a position of strength.” The memo went on to accuse RFK Jr. as having an “unsavory and reckless past, ties to MAGA donors, and MAGA-lite positions on abortion bans and January 6th pardons,” and assert that “his support has dwindled to make him a near-negligible factor.” “The little support that remains is soft, split across ideologies, and disproportionately among lower propensity voters. With no meaningful base of support and sky-high negatives among Democrats, RFK Jr.’s threat to VP Harris was neutralized,” the DNC memo stated. The DNC memo argued Kennedy could actually hurt Trump because of his allegedly “controversial” positions on the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, the Sept. 11 attacks and vaccines. Right now, in their post-DNC euphoria, Democrats believe that they have positioned Harris to win.

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It would end her campaign.

• Why Kamala Harris Won’t Sit For An Interview (Bridge)

The US media has once and for all proven that it is in the pocket of the Democratic Party. It continues to fawn over the greatly flawed Kamala Harris while the presidential candidate has steadfastly refused to do interviews or press conferences for weeks. Taking the lead in this media-backed coup d’état is Time magazine, whose latest issue features a powerful portrait of Kamala Harris on the cover bearing the glowing caption “Her Moment.” Unfortunately, it wasn’t ‘her moment’ for a little chat with the media, although it was certainly the perfect opportunity. In one of the only lines of criticism against Harris in the 3,000-word puff piece, Time writer Charlotte Alter admitted that “Harris has yet to do a single substantive interview or to explain her policy shifts.” Shockingly, Harris even refused a single comment to Time, despite offering gratuitous promotion of the vice president.

That speaks volumes about Harris, who refuses to speak to a publication that is absolutely committed to providing kid-glove treatment to the Democrats. Alter’s description of Harris provided little substance on the vice president’s track record and oceans of ink spewing vacuous allusions to the carnivalesque atmosphere that now accompanies Harris’ political rallies. Many have suggested that this is the only way she is able to fill stadiums and inject a feeling of enthusiasm. “The soundtrack suggested a Beyoncé concert,” Alter opened in the very first paragraph of her article titled ‘The Reintroduction of Kamala Harris’. “The light-up bracelets evoked the Eras Tour. And the exuberant crowd – more than 14,000 strong, lining up in the rain – resembled the early days of Barack Obama.” The name Taylor Swift, certainly no political scientist, popped up several paragraphs later: “More than 38,000 people registered on Vote.org in the 48 hours after she became the presumptive nominee, eclipsing the voter-registration surge encouraged by Taylor Swift last year.”

And if that wasn’t enough, Alter came up with this ridiculous allusion to Hollywood starlets in an effort to explain Harris’ inexplicable rise: “Mass enthusiasm for a woman is nothing new: Harris’s run comes just a year after the blockbuster summer of Barbie, Beyoncé, and Swift.” Finally, Time provided an absurd quote from Senator Cory Booker, who invoked Star Wars imagery to argue that Harris has “mastered the art of ‘arm twisting’ required to pass major legislation” for Democrats. “She has gone,” he said, “from being a Padawan to a Jedi master.” Too bad the force was not with Harris when it came to securing the southern border, or helping working class Americans survive some of the worst inflation the US has experienced in decades. Compare all of that mindless puffery to Donald Trump, who Time interviewed for a cover story in April that was an 83-minute read, while the nitpicking factchecking following the piece took over 20 minutes to digest.

Eric Cortellessa, the journalist who conducted the interview, asked Trump a dozen questions about the Trump prosecutions, five questions about the January 6 ‘insurrection’, four on battling the ‘deep state’, three on his “dictator for a day” joke, two about the possibility of right-wing violence if Trump loses the election, and four on whether he’d seek to overturn the 22nd Amendment to serve a third term in office. It seems that the only reason Trump agrees to sit through these tortuous liberal inquisitions is to have the ability to say he is doing what Kamala Harris conspicuously refuses to do – talk to the media. Whether this strategy will work in his favor is highly debatable given the overwhelming support Harris receives regardless of what she does or doesn’t do. Yet even the Democrats must understand that the media are the gatekeepers to our aspiring politicians. Without the ability of journalists to sit down and grill officials on policy matters, the American people will remain in the dark.

Moreover, sitting in the media hot seat allows the audience to determine if a person has the mettle required for leadership. Many believe that Harris, who has demonstrated an inability to convey complex ideas – ‘word salads’, as they’ve been called – without the assistance of a teleprompter, is perfectly aware of her personal shortcomings, and that is why she is content to remain in the shadows while the media pumps her up into a political tour de force. This could also explain why the Democrats waited until the 11th hour to replace feebleminded Joe Biden with Harris on the presidential ticket – the less time the American people have to listen to Harris’ convoluted arguments (and grating cackle), the better. The rise of Harris from basement-level popularity ratings just four years ago to some sort of political genius proves the undeniable power of the corporate media complex to turn the greatest mediocrity into anyone they like.

“The way the US corporate media transformed Kamala Harris from a national embarrassment to a transformative pioneer overnight – without even pretending to care about anything that she thinks or believes – is a powerful testament to how potent the science of propaganda is,” journalist Glenn Greenwald posted on X (formerly Twitter). [..] Trump and Harris are set to debate on ABC on September 10, an event that the former president, barring some unforeseen disaster, has essentially already won. The final result, however, will depend on whether the audience will side with the snake-oil media and ‘believe their lying ears’, or will they be able to think past their media mind controllers and make an honest judgement of Harris’ performance. The future of the United States hinges on that question.

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“..this year’s Democratic Convention, their Cluster-B personality disorder freak show..”

• End of Hoaxes (Jim Kunstler)

Get this: there is one thing, one lurking terror, behind every fake and desperate move the Democratic Party has made this dire election cycle: the fear that hundreds of high officials might have to pay for their crimes of recent years if they lose on November 5. That’s why they lie about everything, and work so hard to construct false narratives, and struggle to obliterate the memory of Joe Biden’s ruinous term in power. Of course, they can’t talk about it. It’s like the darkest secret in a wrecked human soul that has lost itself in mental illness, some abscess of shame and guilt sealed off in the mind’s attempt to protect itself — like the memory of an incest or an unsolved family murder — which explains the rich show of various derangements actually highlighted at this year’s Democratic Convention, their Cluster-B personality disorder freak show. It is an anguished, guilt-ridden collective mind leaking clues to its own disordered debasement.

So, the deed is done now. The odious “Joe Biden,” fake president, is dumped in the ditch of history, and a mighty operation is mounted to put over Veep Kamala Harris, who ignored “JB’s” incapacity to head the US government for four years, carrying out no duties meanwhile, hiding from the public, answering nothing, going nowhere, abetted by a treasonous news media bent on hiding her as she drank away the months in the old Naval Observatory. The conventions are over and the contest is on. Have you heard enough of their fake war-cry: “defending our democracy?” From a party that has tortured the law to jail and silence its critics and scrape its challengers off every ballot. The pretense is perfect. Their “democracy” is actually a colossal “spoils” system — to the victor goes the spoils! — a grotesque political machine funneling trillions of federal dollars to their client voter groups, and especially to the non-profit orgs and NGOs that form a sinister secondary bureaucracy accountable to nobody.

And all done with direct connivance of the federal intel blob at war with everyone outside this matrix of turpitude. And, by the way, the money is gone. Trillions. And nothing to show for it. This is what Mr. Trump opposes, and has been fighting against since 2016. No wonder it wants to stuff him in prison or kill him. It is a mighty enemy because it holds the levers of official power, especially the federal prosecutors and the state and county prosecutors put in place by the Democrats’ chief “influencer,” the George and Alex Soros NGO empire. And the big picture includes the monumental crime against our country — against all the countries of Western Civ, really — which was the Covid-19 operation that left millions disabled or dead from a phony, poisonous “vaccine.”

And now we hear — as I write early this Friday morning, hours before any official announcement — that Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is about to suspend his campaign, kneecapped by the Democratic Party so busy “defending our democracy,” and perhaps throw his support to Donald Trump in order to defeat this mafia of the mentally ill. I hope he does that. And I hope he denounces the party of his ancestors in the most vividly opprobrious terms so that no one can misunderstand the gravity of what has been going on. I’d also look forward to Mr. Kennedy playing an important role in the second Trump government. Mr. Kennedy knows probably better than anyone in America exactly how the gigantic racketeering operation was constructed that grafted pharma onto the US public health agencies, the FDA, CDC, NIAID, and others.

This monster that has left so many Americans dead and injured, and wrecked the health of the nation’s young people especially, must be slayed. It must be disassembled and its pieces reconstructed into institutions that actually serve the public. This includes the hospital holding companies, the private equity pirates out to asset-strip medicine, the insurance-driven, overgrown doctors’ practices, and the mendacious medical boards, professional orgs, and journals that unjustly punished dissident doctors and nurses who tried to oppose the extralegal Covid-19 vaxx mandates. If it happens that Mr. Kennedy joins forces with Mr. Trump, it could be a momentous turn in an election so far marred by Democratic Party hoaxes, coups, and lawfare ops. Naturally, The New York Times played the story this morning in a tiny headline below-the-fold, saying nothing about the rumored stunning alliance between the Kennedy and Trump campaigns.

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Leon Panetta. Sweet Jesus.

Trump wants peace. Kamala wants whatever the Deep State wants.

• CIA Endorses Harris as Democrats Promise More War, Foreign Intervention (Sp.)

A former chief of the controversial intelligence agency voiced his support for the vice president at the Democratic National Convention Thursday. US Vice President Kamala Harris signaled she would continue her predecessor’s hawkish foreign policy in Gaza and Ukraine Thursday as an ex-CIA director publicly endorsed the Democratic presidential candidate. “As president I will stand strong with Ukraine and our NATO allies,” Harris declared during her acceptance speech, voicing strong support for Kiev’s US-backed proxy war against Russia. Former intelligence chief Leon Panetta also delivered a speech praising Harris during which the controversial figure claimed he was “proud” to have served in the US Army and CIA director. US military aggression throughout the Middle East during the so-called “War on Terror” is estimated to have caused the deaths of at least 4.5 million people while the CIA has been implicated in numerous human rights violations.

“The Democrats really showed that this is a hawkish party and really neoconservatives are in charge of the party,” noted CovertAction Magazine managing editor Jeremy Kuzmarov on Sputnik’s The Final Countdown program. “I mean, they brought out Leon Panetta earlier tonight. He’s a former CIA director who was a key mastermind of the drone war and a key figure behind Russiagate and a key supporter of Hillary Clinton and chief of staff in the Bill Clinton White House.” “In her speech [Harris] was talking about how [former US President Donald] Trump supposedly coddled [foreign leaders] like Putin, and that’s totally false,” he continued. “Trump had a pretty hardline policy toward Russia. He pulled out of the INF Treaty. He ramped up weapons supplies to Ukraine. So that’s just like an extreme right-wing position that they’re adopting.”

“They’re celebrating this war in Ukraine [that] siphoned off billions of hard-earned taxpayer dollars into a sinkhole just like Afghanistan, and a lot of those weapons have been stolen. And this party is cheerleading for that. So that’s where they are.” Corruption has long been recognized as endemic in Ukraine, which experts have noted is “the most corrupt nation in Europe.” Earlier this year, a massive corruption scandal was uncovered that saw almost $40 million in US aid stolen by officials in the country’s defense ministry. In June, it was revealed that Western military-grade weapons supplied to Ukraine have been sold on the black market, ending up in the hands of terrorists and European drug cartels. Various neoconservative figures such as Iraq War architect Bill Kristol have shifted allegiances to the Democratic Party in recent years as Republicans have become increasingly critical of foreign intervention under the banner of Trump’s “America First” ethos. Recent polling shows increasing numbers of Americans believe the US has spent too much money funding Ukraine’s quixotic proxy war on Russia.

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“You know why. We gave it all up to Ukraine and various other places. We gave them everything.”

• US Running Out Of Ammo – Trump (RT)

The US military is running out of ammunition as President Joe Biden’s administration has bled stockpiles dry to arm Ukraine and other nations, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has claimed. The GOP firebrand pledged to turn the tide and make a “historic investment in rebuilding” the American military, if elected. Speaking by phone to Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky last month, Trump reiterated his long-standing promise to swiftly end the conflict between Kiev and Moscow if elected in November. Back in June, the former US president also made it clear that he would stop donating tens of billions of dollars’ worth of handouts to Ukraine. Addressing his supporters, along with his vice presidential pick, Senator J.D. Vance, in Asheboro, North Carolina on Wednesday, Trump lamented: “They released a report talking about all of the vulnerable areas… we’re weak here, we’re weak there.”

“That’s like saying: ‘We have no ammunition,’” he said. “You know why. We gave it all up to Ukraine and various other places. We gave them everything.” According to the former president, billions of dollars’ worth of weaponry and ammunition has been donated free of charge. While it is not clear what report exactly Trump was referring to, experts on the congressional Commission on the National Defense Strategy released a 312-page assessment in late July, warning that the US military “lacks both the capabilities and the capacity required to be confident it can deter and prevail in combat.” According to the report, in a hypothetical future conflict with China, the latter would likely be aided, at least economically and possibly also militarily, by the likes of Russia, Iran, or North Korea. This would make the odds of a US victory increasingly slim, military experts predicted.

“Unclassified public wargames suggest that, in a conflict with China, the United States would largely exhaust its munitions inventories in as few as three to four weeks, with some important munitions (e.g. anti-ship missiles) lasting only a few days,” the document concluded. Experts on the commission attributed the current state of affairs to serious inadequacies in America’s defense industry that they said would require significant investment to rectify.

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“..Russia must therefore “act decisively, increasing our military-industrial potential, because only our army and navy will protect our country..”

• US Preparing To Lift Ban On Strikes Deep Inside Russia – Moscow (RT)

Claims by Washington that it has banned Ukraine from using US-supplied long-range weapons for strikes deep inside Russian territory cannot be trusted, Moscow’s ambassador to the US, Anatoly Antonov, has said. Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky has resumed his calls for the country’s Western backers to allow long-range strikes on Russian territory during Kiev’s ongoing incursion into Kursk Region. The Pentagon stated last week that its stance remains unchanged, and that Ukraine is still banned from using US-supplied ATACMS missiles, which have a range of up to 300km (186 miles), for attacks deep inside Russia. Speaking to journalists on Friday, Antonov claimed that the US authorities “seem to be constantly teasing us by saying that today it is allegedly not allowed to use long-range systems to strike at Russian territory.” “But in reality, they are essentially preparing the ground to simply remove all existing restrictions, at a certain point,” the Russian envoy added.

Judging by Washington’s previous assistance to Kiev, including its training of pilots to fly F-16 jets, it is almost certain that Ukraine will “fight with US-made [long-range] weapons against us,” the ambassador said, as cited by TASS. “Where exactly will it happen? We cannot say or foretell,” he stressed. According to Antonov, the administration of US President Joe Biden is becoming increasingly unpredictable. “There is no guarantee that the whole world will not change tomorrow when you and I wake up. How the Americans will behave in this situation is very hard to tell,” he said. Russia must therefore “act decisively, increasing our military-industrial potential, because only our army and navy will protect our country,” the ambassador insisted.

Antonov also made a live appearance on Russia’s Channel One on Thursday, where he rejected claims by the US authorities that they had been unaware of the Ukrainian plans to attack Kursk Region.“I am firmly convinced that in Kiev they do nothing without the go-ahead from their masters… They wouldn’t have dared to move a finger… in our direction without consent from Washington,” he said. Commenting on the fate of Ukrainian troops who have entered Russian territory, the ambassador insisted that “no one has any doubts that they will be destroyed, not pushed back, but destroyed.” Russia’s Defense Ministry estimated on Thursday that Ukraine has lost more than 4,700 troops and several hundred units of military equipment, including 68 tanks and 53 armored personnel carriers, since the start of the incursion in Kursk Region on August 6.

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“New Delhi stopped short of signing the joint communiqué emerging from the Swiss-hosted event, as the event didn’t include Russia..”

• India Is Not Neutral But Stands For Peace, Modi Tells Zelensky (RT)

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Kiev on Friday, marking the first visit by an Indian premier to the country. During a meeting with Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky, Modi stated that India has not been “neutral or an indifferent bystander” as the Russia-Ukraine conflict persists, and has always been “on the side of peace.” The joint communique issued by the two sides after the leaders’ meeting noted that Modi reiterated its “principled position and focus on peaceful resolution through dialogue and diplomacy.” According to Indian foreign minister S. Jaishankar, who briefed the media in Kiev, Modi and Zelensky had a detailed and open discussion and New Delhi promised it was ready to make proactive contributions towards efforts for peace. The joint statement noted that India had attended the ‘peace summit’ hosted by Switzerland in June this year as part of this commitment.

However, New Delhi stopped short of signing the joint communiqué emerging from the Swiss-hosted event, as the event didn’t include Russia. On Friday, Jaishankar noted that Modi called for “practical engagement” between all stakeholders” to work out “innovative solutions” that could lead to peace. “President Zelensky knows we mean well by Ukraine, we want this conflict to come to an end. If there is anything we can do in any way in sort of upfront, behind or supporting anybody, we are willing to do whatever we can. This conflict must end, we believe,” Jaishankar said. Modi’s visit was the first-ever visit by an Indian premier to Ukraine since the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. Upon his arrival in Kiev, he was greeted by members of the Indian diaspora there. Later, he and Zelensky honored the memory of children who died in the conflict in a visit to the Martyrologist Exposition tribute, and paid tribute to Mahatma Gandhi in the ‘Oasis of Peace’ park in the capital.

Modi’s Ukraine visit comes nearly six weeks after he traveled to Russia for a bilateral summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Since the beginning of the conflict, India has abstained from condemning Moscow over the conflict or from downgrading trade and diplomatic ties with it, despite pressure from the West. New Delhi has maintained robust ties with Russia despite the West’s scrutiny of the relationship. Bilateral trade crossed $60 billion last year, largely bolstered by Indian imports of discounted Russian coal and oil. The premier’s visit to Moscow in July came under intense scrutiny from Washington and other global capitals. Biden administration officials were uncomfortable with the optics of the visit, which coincided with a crucial NATO summit that featured Zelensky. Ukraine’s leader himself termed Modi’s meeting with Putin a “huge disappointment” and a “blow” to peace efforts, prompting New Delhi to summon the Ukrainian envoy over the remark.

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A 10 year old regime vs a 1000 year old religion.

• Crackdown on Ukraine’s Largest Church Is ‘Full-fledged Satanism’ – Medvedev (RT)

Kiev’s Western backers are supporting its “satanic” crackdown on the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev claimed on Friday. On Tuesday, the Ukrainian parliament passed a law that prohibits “Russia-linked” religious organizations. The self-governed UOC, which has historical and spiritual ties with the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC), is understood to be the primary target of the legislation. Medvedev, who serves as deputy chair of the Russian Security Council, said he holds Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky accountable for the crackdown. Pyotr Poroshenko, Zelensky’s predecessor, caused a major religious schism in Ukraine when he orchestrated the creation of the so-called Orthodox Church of Ukraine in late 2018 as part of his failed reelection campaign, Medvedev pointed out.

Under Zelensky, however, “the destruction of the Orthodox faith in Ukraine and the persecution of Christians for their faith started,” culminating in the new law, the former Russian leader argued. Zelensky “has no religious identity” and the crackdown is “full-fledged satanism” supported by people in his government, Medvedev alleged. “The civilized West” backed both Poroshenko’s ploy and the ongoing persecution “to inflict maximum damage to Russia and its citizens,” he added. Ukraine “will be destroyed, like Sodom and Gomorrah were, and the demons will inevitably fall,” Medvedev said, referring to the Old Testament story of two cities obliterated by divine intervention for their wickedness. He added a biblical quote describing the Jewish conquest of Canaan and the punishment that Joshua exacted on the leaders of conquered tribes.

Viktor Elensky, the head of the Ukrainian service for ethnic policy and freedom of conscience, claimed on Thursday that the new law “has the legitimate goal of stopping the subversive activities of the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine.” Kiev has no intention of forcing clerics and the faithful to join any other denomination, but if the UOC wishes to exist, it has to abide by the new rules and disavow any ties with Moscow, the official added. Clement, the UOC bishop who serves as the spokesman for the church, wondered if schismatic leaders would have to overcome bureaucratic barriers to prove their loyalty. Among other things, the law demands public affirmation by Ukrainian clerics that they have cut all ties with the Russian church. The UOC will “keep living as a true church recognized by the majority of practicing Ukrainian believers and the world’s independent Orthodox churches,” he told the media. Any attempt to ban it will merely tarnish the reputation of the people pushing for it, Clement argued.

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The church is rich. Ukraine is corrupt.

• Ukraine Sells Its Orthodox Heritage Out to West. But Wait, It’s Russian (Sp.)

The Kiev regime tends to view its common religious heritage with Russia as exclusively Ukrainian and sells to the West invaluable Christian artifacts, religion expert Roman Lunkin told Sputnik. Historical and cultural artifacts, including Orthodox icons, are taken out of Ukraine and transferred to Western countries where some of them are sold, according to Roman Lunkin, head of the Center for the Study of Religion and Society of the Institute of Europe at the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS). “It is not rational and not at all ethical to treat the heritage this way,” Lunkin told Sputnik. Last year, the rarest 6th and 7th-century Byzantine icons were secretly transferred from the territory of Ukraine to France under the pretext of safety issues, and then displayed at the Louvre Museum in Paris. All in all,16 invaluable artifacts were brought to France through Poland and Germany.

Still, the crux of the matter is that these Christian Orthodox icons were gifted to the head of the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in Jerusalem by the Sinai Monastery of St. Catherine in the mid-19th century, according to Bishop Porfiry, a Russian theologian and byzantinologist. In 1940, the Soviet government transferred the icons to the Kiev Museum of Western and Oriental Art (now known as the Khanenko Museum of Art), where they were kept after the Great Patriotic War. It is unclear whether and when the icons will be returned. On June 26, 2023, Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) reported on Kiev’s plans to remove Christian valuables and relics from the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, and send them to Europe under the pretext of “saving them from Russian missile attacks”, despite the fact Russian forces are not targeting civilian facilities, let alone Orthodox holy places.

Still, there is more to the Kiev regime’s readiness to squander its heritage, and the West’s eagerness to keep Ukraine’s Christian valuables under the auspices of the International Alliance for the Protection of Heritage in Conflict Areas (ALIPH), chaired and overseen by US billionaires. Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova last year linked the alleged plot, described by the SVR, as well as the secret removal of Byzantine icons from the Kiev museum, to the old Western colonial trend: “Western countries have stolen national valuables throughout the world, and their museums can be described as the ‘safekeepers’ of valuables stolen from their colonies, as you can see in the Ancient Egypt exhibit in the Louvre or the British Museum… The West has always plundered its colonies. Ukraine is no exception. There is no doubt that no one was going to return the valuables they had taken away from other countries,” Zakharova stressed.

The problem is that the Kiev regime considers this historical and cultural heritage “exclusively Ukrainian”, regardless of its true origin, Lunkin underscored. “Icons that are kept in the [Kiev-Pechersk] Lavra and other museums, including cultural monuments in Ukraine, are the common property of Russian culture and the culture of Kievan Rus, which was created from the moment of the Baptism of Russia more than 1000 years ago. Accordingly, this is the common and inseparable heritage of our countries because it was created at a time when Rus existed, before Ukrainians and Ukraine did. Therefore, it is wrong to call these icons exclusively Ukrainian,” the pundit said. The Kiev-Pechersk Lavra was founded in 1051, during the rule of the Russian Duke Yaroslav the Wise, who reigned in Rostov, Novgorod, and later in Kiev. The Lavra has always been considered part of the common historical and religious heritage of Russians and Ukrainians.

However, in the aftermath of the 2014 coup in Ukraine, which illegitimately brought to power Western-backed nationalist authorities, the Kiev regime doubled down on creating a separate “Ukrainian history” to “appropriate” the Kievan Rus history. In May 2017, then President Petro Poroshenko claimed that Duke Yaroslav and his daughter, Anna, who became Queen of France in 1051 upon marrying King Henry I, were “Ukrainians”, regardless of the fact that this East Slavic ethnic group had not been formed at that time. Volodymyr Zelensky has gone even further, according to Lunkin. In addition to creating a myth about a separate Ukrainian history and a separate Ukrainian Orthodoxy, “the Ukrainian authorities and the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU), which they created [in 2018], are trying to separate the saints, who were born on the territory of modern Russia,” the pundit pointed out.

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When Boeing merged with McDonnell Douglas, the entire new company became focused on cost saving. Accountants for engineers.

• Confusion And Chaos At Factory That Built Two Doomed 737 MAX Planes (ZH)

New documents released Thursday reveal that ‘confusion and chaos’ reigned in the company’s Renton factory that built two 737 MAX planes that later crashed, killing 346 people in 2018 and 2019, the Seattle Times reports. According to a prominent whistleblower Ed Pierson, production issues from back then still affect MAX planes flying today. The new documents reveal multiple electrical issues that were discovered as Boeing assembled the Ethiopian Airlines jet that crashed in 2019. The Times notes that in 2018, the FAA found that employees in another Boeing facility in Everett, WA – where electrical components for integration – had been pushed to move to fast, and produced defective pieces. Communications between Boeing and Ethiopian Airlines show the plane that later crashed experienced an in-flight safety incident months before the fatal accident. Boeing told the airline that the December 2018 incident was likely the result of an electrical error, the records show.

The whistleblower, Pierson, said the records and the earlier safety incident bolster his view that the deadly crash of the Ethiopian jet may have been initiated by an electrical problem. That problem traces back to production issues with electrical wire bundles that Pierson has highlighted. Pierson, who worked at Boeing for more than a decade and served as a senior manager coordinating fixes for assembly problems on the 737 program, released the new documents through an advocacy group he formed after the crashes, the Foundation for Aviation Safety – and said that Boeing withheld the documents from regulatory investigators looking into the two deadly crashes. Following the deadly incidents, he repeatedly alleged that manufacturing defects played a role. The FAA, NTSB, and international regulators are in disagreement over the cause.

In both crashes, an error with then-new software — the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System or MCAS — caused the plane to nosedive. Boeing recently pleaded guilty to misleading safety regulators about MCAS and how much training pilots would need to fly safely. In the case of the Ethiopian crash, the NTSB and its French counterpart concluded that it wasn’t an electrical error but a bird strike damaging a sensor that likely triggered the MCAS software. The U.S. agency disputed a report from Ethiopian authorities that said the sensor was triggered by “production quality defects.” Pierson sent the newly disclosed records to the NTSB, the FAA and the Department of Justice in July, he said. Meanwhile, the FAA and NTSB are playing hot potato over the new documents, and have suggested that questions should be directed to Ethiopian authorities.

Boeing, in a statement, said that it “fully cooperated and provided relevant information to the investigation” regarding the Ethiopian Airlines flight 302 crash, adding “We defer to the investigative agencies for further information.” The new documents also reveal that from communications between Boeing and Ethiopian Airlines, in December 2018, the airline’s 737 MAX experienced an “uncommanded roll”—a situation where the plane rolls unexpectedly, potentially disorienting the pilot and risking loss of control. This incident occurred just weeks after Ethiopian Airlines took delivery of the aircraft, and only a few months before it tragically crashed, killing all onboard.

Boeing’s communication with the airline at the time indicated that the uncommanded roll was likely caused by an electrical fault. The company advised Ethiopian Airlines to inspect the plane’s wiring for issues, raising questions about the broader electrical integrity of the 737 MAX fleet. Further complicating matters, the Foundation for Aviation Safety released a copy of Boeing’s Shipside Action Tracker from the 2018 production of the ill-fated Ethiopian Airlines plane. This internal database, used by Boeing to document and resolve issues during aircraft assembly, revealed a series of misinstalled and mislabeled electrical components. The records also pointed to significant miscommunication among Boeing employees regarding the work performed on the aircraft.

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Power of Siberia.

• Tale of Two Pipelines… Europe Loses, China Gains (SCF)

The Power of Siberia pipelines transporting natural gas from Russia to China were back in the news this week, as was the ill-fated Nord Stream pipeline, the Russian-European counterpart. First, it was announced the Power of Siberia 2 was on track for completion this year. When operational, the new pipeline will augment existing trans-Siberian delivery to China, bringing the total gas supply from Russia to 100 billion cubic meters per year. That awesome gas supply figure is significant. For not too long it was projected that the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines would have a combined capacity to deliver 100 bcm to Europe. Alas, that energy project was sabotaged in September 2022 when the gas pipes were blown up on the Baltic seabed.

Veteran investigative reporter Seymour Hersh and other writers have provided the most compelling account of the sabotage. It was carried out by American military and CIA operatives with the approval of President Joe Biden. See our weekly editorial published on September 30, 2022, days after the incident in which we outlined strong evidence inculpating Washington. It was an audacious act of international state terrorism carried out by the Americans to destroy the decades-old energy trade between Russia and Europe. In particular, Germany’s postwar economic prowess was powered by relatively cheap and abundant Russian hydrocarbons. Now, the United States has stepped in as a supplier of much more expensive Liquefied Natural Gas to Europe. Incredibly, no serious investigation has been carried out by European states to find the culprit.

Russia, which was the main owner of the multi-billion euro project, has offered to cooperate with European states to investigate the blast, but all of Moscow’s offers have been rebuffed. You could hardly make this criminal farce up. For years, the Americans enviously griped about Russia being the strategic energy supplier to Europe. With the escalation of the proxy war against Russia in Ukraine in February 2022, the Americans and their European NATO lackeys had a convenient pretext for blowing up the Nord Stream pipes. The net result is that Germany’s economy – once the powerhouse of the European Union – has been dragged to its knees from the loss of its vital energy input from Russia. Germany is teetering on recession and its famed export-led industries are no longer competitive.

Yet despite this blatant crime, the political establishments in Germany and other countries directly affected by the Nord Stream vandalism – Sweden and Denmark – remain pathetically beholden to Washington. Two years after a huge transgression against Europe and Russia by the obvious culprit, the European authorities have dissembled and procrastinated. Last week, Germany issued an arrest warrant for a Ukrainian diver whom it claims was involved in the undersea attack. This is a variant of previous claims in the American media that the Nord Stream sabotage was carried out by Ukrainian operatives. This narrative is absurd and an obvious distraction from the real story. There is no way that such a difficult operation could have been achieved by a bunch of amateurs. The Nord Stream sabotage required state-level expertise. The Americans also had an imperative motive – to force their way into the lucrative European energy market.

All of this is a tragicomedy. Russia’s fair and advantageous services have been perversely spurned by Europeans under the malign spell of American overseers. The European governments and media can’t even muster the courage or independence to conduct a proper investigation into the wanton destruction of their economies. However, Russia has not been deterred or undermined. Far from it, unlike Germany and other recession-hit European states, Russia is growing at a robust rate. A large part of the benefit stems from the Russian energy trade now being directed to Asia. China is gaining where Europe lost. The expanding Power of Siberia projects represent the loss of Nord Stream.

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We know why this is happening. Insulting Kamala is not tolerated.

• US House Oversight Asks TSA Why Tulsi Gabbard Is on Terror Watchlist (Sp.)

US House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer sent a letter on Friday to Transportation Security Administration (TSA) chief David Pekoske regarding whistleblower allegations that the agency placed former US Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard on a terror watchlist. A whistleblower from the Federal Air Marshals Service (FAMS) disclosed to Congress that the TSA allegedly targeted Gabbard under its Quiet Skies program, which is designed to mitigate threats posed by higher risk passengers, the letter said. The TSA added Gabbard to the Quiet Skies program on July 23, 2024 – one day after she criticized the Biden administration in an interview, the letter said. A whistleblower also disclosed that his wife was targeted with “special mission coverage” because she attended former US President Donald Trump’s January 6, 2021 speech in Washington, but was “nowhere near” the US Capitol that day, the letter said.

Moreover, the whistleblower claims that the TSA classified the protected disclosures as a leak and initiated a retaliatory investigation. “It is alarming that TSA is wasting its resources to surveil an air marshal’s wife and Ms. Gabbard – a high-profile, American public figure – when the threat of terrorist attacks on the United States is high,” the letter said. The letter requests information from TSA on actions taken with respect to employees linked to the disclosures regarding Gabbard and the air marshal’s wife, as well as all information related to Gabbard and the Quiet Skies program. The letter also requests a briefing for committee staff no later than August 30.

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“..My objection, and that of many others, is to male violence against women becoming an Olympic sport.”

• JK Rowling Reportedly Sued by Olympic Boxer Over Gender Criticism (Turley)

We have previously discussed the cancel campaigns targeting JK Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter series. Rowling was not only the greatest selling author of all time but a wildly popular writer until she publicly opposed certain transgender policies as inimical to the advances in feminism. Now, she is the target of a lawsuit by Algerian boxer Imane Khelif, the gold-medal winning athlete who had previously failed a gender test to confirm that she is a female fighter. We previously discussed that global debate, but Khelif is now accusing Rowling out of many thousands of critics of being a cyberbully. X owner Elon Musk has also been named in the lawsuit. Rowling has been the target of a global campaign due to her rejection of transgender laws and policies. Many on the left have unleashed book bans and burnings. I have been critical of that campaign.

Even third parties who have supported Rowling’s right to free speech have been targeted in cancel campaigns. She held her ground after Scotland passed a draconian law, the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021. The new crime under the law covers “stirring up hatred” relating to age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, transgender identity or being intersex. That crime covers insulting comments and anything “that a reasonable person would consider to be threatening or abusive.” Rowling previously posted various responses to the controversy on her X account on August 7, including: “For the record, bombarding me with pictures of athletic women to ‘teach’ me that women don’t all look like Barbie is like spamming me with pics of differently-shaped potatoes to prove rocks are edible. I can still see the difference and you look frankly bonkers.”

She later also posted: “Commentators pretending critics of the IOC’s reliance on documents rather than sex testing think Khelif is trans are straw-manning. I don’t claim Khelif is trans. My objection, and that of many others, is to male violence against women becoming an Olympic sport.” She further wrote on X how she was concerned over both boxers challenged over their gender at the Olympics: “What will it take to end this insanity? A female boxer left with life-altering injuries? A female boxer killed?” France has eviscerated free speech protections over the last few decades with speech criminalization laws. There is some question whether the French laws would apply to tweets made outside of the country. These laws criminalize speech under vague standards referring to “inciting” or “intimidating” others based on race or religion. For example, fashion designer John Galliano has been found guilty in a French court on charges of making anti-Semitic comments against at least three people in a Paris bar.

At his sentencing, Judge Anne Marie Sauteraud read out a list of the bad words used by Galliano to Geraldine Bloch and Philippe Virgitti, including using ‘dirty whore” in criticism. In another case, the father of French conservative presidential candidate Marine Le Pen was fined because he had called people from the Roma minority “smelly.” A French teenager was charged for criticizing Islam as a “religion of hate.” The question of the extraterritorial application of such laws is the question. Conversely, the United Kingdom and the European Union are asserting the right to regulate speech in any country, including political speech in American presidential elections. Rowling has every right to be heard on the Olympic boxing controversy. This debate raises core issues that touch on a wide array of political speech. Khelif has the ability to refute these claims through the exercise of her own free speech. As in the past battles fought by Rowley, her effort to advocate for women’s rights is also a major test over free speech in Europe.

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Legend

 

 

 

 

Tantrum

 

 

Rottweiler

 

 

Caprice No. 24 Paganini

 

 

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Debt Rattle August 21 2024

Aug 212024
 
 August 21, 2024  Posted by at 8:43 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  31 Responses »


Pablo Picasso Tête de femme 1926

 

• Musk Responds To Trump’s Job Offer (RT)
• RFK Jr Campaign Mulling “Joining Forces With Trump” (ZH)
• Trump Vows to Slash Energy Costs by Half if Elected (OP)
• Harris Refuses to Participate in Televised Debate on September 4 – Trump (Sp.)
• Harris Polls “Much Less Rosy” Than Reported, SuperPAC Admits (ZH)
• DNC Platform Calls For ‘Radical’ Mass Amnesty For Millions Of Illegals (ZH)
• All Trump, no Harris: The Democratic Party’s Puzzling New Platform (RT)
• Kamala Harris’ Radical Left Plan to Ruin America (Lacalle)
• Harris’ Unrealized Gains Tax Would Obliterate The US Economy (QTR)
• Trump Bows Down To Putin – Biden (RT)
• Where Unauthorized Migrants In The US Come From (SCF)
• War With Iran Would Bring Global Economic Collapse, Isolate US (Sp.)
• Ukrainian MPs Pave Way For Ban On Largest Christian Church (RT)
• Harley-Davidson Hits Brakes On Diversity (RT)
• Boeing Halts 777 Test Flights (RT)

 

 

 

 

Bloodbath

 

 

Dore Chicago

 

 

Medhurst

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)”

• Musk Responds To Trump’s Job Offer (RT)

Billionaire Elon Musk has expressed a willingness to take a position with the US government should Republican nominee Donald Trump be elected president. The GOP nominee recently suggested that he could give Musk an advisory role in his administration. In the wake of the assassination attempt on Trump last month, Musk publicly backed his candidacy, writing on X: “I fully endorse President Trump and hope for his rapid recovery.” The businessman has adopted an increasingly critical stance toward the Democratic President Joe Biden in recent months. In a post on X on Tuesday, Musk signaled to Trump: “I am willing to serve.” One user suggested naming a department that Musk could head in the US government as the “Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)” – an apparent reference to the ‘Doge meme’ and the eponymous Dogecoin cryptocurrency.

Commenting on the idea, the billionaire jokingly replied that this is the “perfect name.” Speaking to Reuters on Monday, Trump described the tech tycoon as a “very smart guy.” “I certainly would [appoint Musk to an advisory role], if he would do it, I certainly would,” the Republican nominee said. Last week, Musk staged a live interview with Trump on the X platform, which he owns. At one point during the conversation, Musk called on the presidential hopeful to establish a “government efficiency commission” to ensure that taxpayer money is better spent. He also offered to help out with such an endeavor, to which Trump replied that Musk would be ideal for the role.

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“..Because We ‘Run The Risk Of Enabling A Harris/Walz Presidency'”

“…the DNC made it impossible for us… …they have banned us, shadow-banned us. kept us off stages. manipulated polls. used lawfare against us. sued us in every possible State.”

“..I believed in the America that I a little girl pledged an allegiance to…”

• RFK Jr Campaign Mulling “Joining Forces With Trump” (ZH)

Just days after refuting reports that RFK Jr approached Harris for a cabinet position, his running mate, Nicole Shanahan just dropped a bombshell during a podcast that could change the race considerably. Appearing on the ‘Impact Theory’ podcast (that was filmed yesterday), Shanahan said they are debating whether to stay in the race or drop out and join forces with Trump: “There’s two options that we’re looking at… …and one is staying in, forming that new party, but we run the risk of a Kamala Harris and Waltz presidency because we draw more votes from Trump. Or we walk away right now and join forces with with Donald Trump and explain to our base why we’re making this decision.”

Shanahan is clearly disillusioned at the anti-democratic methods that the Democratic Party have pulled to stall RFK Jr’s progress: “…the DNC made it impossible for us… …they have banned us, shadow-banned us. kept us off stages. manipulated polls. used lawfare against us. sued us in every possible State. They’ve even planted insiders into our campaign to disrupt it, and to create actual legal issues for us. I mean the extent by which the sabotage they’ve unleashed upon us is mindblowing. I mean we’re still learning new ways that they have sabotaged us. I really wanted a fair shot at this election and I believed in the America that I a little girl pledged an allegiance to…”

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“We have more of the real energy, the energy that works..”

• Trump Vows to Slash Energy Costs by Half if Elected (OP)

GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump has promised to reduce energy costs by half by reversing current federal government policies in his first year in office if he gets elected. Trump was speaking at an event at a defense manufacturing facility in Pennsylvania and said that if he enters the White House, during his first year he would remove future mandates for electric cars and cancel “green energy” policies, according to a report by UPI. Trump went on to warn those in attendance that if Harris wins the presidential vote, energy costs would triple and quadruple, and the U.S. “won’t be producing a drop of oil.” He also accused the Biden administration of a “regulatory jihad to shut down power plants.” The Biden administration indeed has a very different energy policies agenda than Trump and Harris has indicated she would stay in the transition lane if she enters the White House as president.

Trump, on the other hand, has remained a staunch supporter of what he calls U.S. energy dominance, encouraging as much oil and gas production as possible to turn the country into a self-sufficient one in terms of energy and extend its international influence through energy exports. Last month, in an interview with Bloomberg, Trump said that if he wins he would boost U.S. oil production, calling the commodity liquid gold. “We have more liquid gold than anybody,” Trump told the publication, adding “We need energy at low prices. The advantage we have all over almost every country including the very large ones is that we have more energy than anybody. We have more of the real energy, the energy that works,” the former president vying for another term in office said. “Wind does not work. It’s too expensive,” said Trump, claiming that solar and wind farms are neither too good for the environment, nor too suitable to provide energy at low costs and prices.

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“..it is very difficult, at best, for her to defend her record setting Flip-Flopping on absolutely everything she once believed in.”

• Harris Refuses to Participate in Televised Debate on September 4 – Trump (Sp.)

Former US President and Republican candidate for the upcoming presidential election Donald Trump said that his Democratic opponent, current US Vice President Kamala Harris, informed his team that she would not participate in the debates on the Fox News channel on September 4. “Comrade Kamala Harris has just informed us that she will NOT do the FoxNews Debate on September 4th,” Trump said on social media. “I am not surprised by this development because I feel that she knows it is very difficult, at best, for her to defend her record setting Flip-Flopping on absolutely everything she once believed in.”

Trump noted that instead of the debate on that day, Fox will host a televised meeting with him in Pennsylvania. The former president promised to provide details later. Earlier in August, Trump said that he would hold three rounds of televised debates with Harris in the coming month, which are planned to be organized on the platforms of three different US television channels. However, he did not specify whether Harris herself had confirmed her readiness to participate in all three rounds of televised debates with him.

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Until recently, nobody knew her. Those in the DNC who did, refused to vote for her. And just like that, she’s more popular than Trump? Sure thing.

• Harris Polls “Much Less Rosy” Than Reported, SuperPAC Admits (ZH)

The founder of the main outside spending group backing Kamala Harris for president says their own internal opinion polling is “much less rosy” than public polls – and has warned Democrats that they face much closer races in key states. “Our numbers are much less rosy than what you’re seeing in the public,” said Future Forward super PAC president Chauncey McLean said during a Monday event hosted by the University of Chicago Institute of Politics. According to public polls – which, as you’ll see below, are largely bullshit – Harris is leading Donald Trump in several national polls by FiveThirtyEight; 46.6% to 43.8%, and has allegedly pulled ahead in several battleground states, Reuters reports. Except that’s not what Future Forward is seeing…

The PAC has created a ‘massive polling operation’ and tested some 500 digital television ads for Biden and 200 for Harris, along with polling some 375,000 Americans in the weeks after Biden was forced out of the 2024 race and Harris became the presumptive Democratic nominee on July 22. According to McLean, the majority of Harris’ momentum after she took over for Biden was from young voters of color – opening up Sunbelt states such as Nevada, Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina. That said, Pennsylvania – the most consequential state in the group’s analysis, is a ‘coin flip’ based on Future Forward polls. He says Harris must win one of three states – Pennsylvania, North Carolina or Georgia – to win the White House. He warned that Harris has yet to fully rebuild the Biden coalition of Blacks, Hispanics and young voters that brought him the White House in 2020.

McLean said polling shows the public wants more detailed policy positions from Harris. He says they don’t want “white papers,” but they also don’t want platitudes. He says they need more concrete examples of how she may differ from Biden and make their lives easier economically. Trump allies have called on Harris to do the same in recent days, hoping to pin her down on controversial issues. -Reuters. According to McLean, the race is tight as ever.

“We have it tight as a tick, and pretty much across the board,” he said. About those bullshit polls… Mark Davin Harris of political consulting firm ColdSpark says they’re seeing a “historic response bias on surveys that is setting the table for a large polling miss this fall.” Diving right in, Harris says pollsters are essentially injecting unreported bias into polls by targeting subgroups more likely to answer the way they want. For example, “In the meta data from the call centers college educated Dems are 3-4x more likely to answer than non-college. While weighting can help minimize the bias if done correctly it won’t totally eliminate the problem. For example even if you quota’ed for party (something I have very mixed feelings about) AND for education at the topline you can have the college Dems consume such a big chunk of Democrats that you miss the downscale Dems that are MUCH less partisan loyal.”

Harris is set to release an analysis that show “historically liberal” bias even when they “weight back to party.” According to Harris, one possible solution would be to focus on a person’s past voting history – as those who ‘always’ vote are being oversampled vs. the ‘low turnout’ voters, who are more likely to vote for Trump. “We’re seeing a lot of surveys WAY oversampling the ‘always voters’ and not getting enough of the infrequent voters that are so important in a Presidential race and Trump does better with low turnout folks,” he said.

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Who in America truly wants this?

• DNC Platform Calls For ‘Radical’ Mass Amnesty For Millions Of Illegals (ZH)

The official Democratic party platform calls for the passage of the US Citizenship Act – which the Trump campaign on Monday called ‘a radical amnesty bill that would give automatic citizenship and social security numbers to the millions of illegal aliens that invaded our country, including criminals, human traffickers, and gang members.’ According to the DNC platform: America is a nation of immigrants. The legal immigration framework was last updated in 1990 and does not reflect the needs of our country in the 21st century. Many immigrants today are forced to wait years, and often decades, to immigrate lawfully to the United States. A robust immigration system with accessible lawful pathways and penalties for illegal immigration alleviates pressure at the border and upholds our values. The U.S. Citizenship Act would permanently increase family-sponsored and employment-based immigration. This is in sharp contrast to Trump’s platform, which calls for sealing the border and carrying out the largest deportation operation in US history.

“This was the plan all along”. Some are suggesting that the Biden-Harris administration allowed the country to be flooded with illegal immigrants in order to eventually grant mass amnesty.

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“The 91-page document was compiled in July and published on Sunday..” “The platform refers to Biden as the Democratic Party’s candidate at least 20 times..”

• All Trump, no Harris: The Democratic Party’s Puzzling New Platform (RT)

Democratic delegates have voted to approve the party’s 2024 platform. The 94-page document still states that President Joe Biden is running for office, mentions Donald Trump more than Kamala Harris, and includes multiple false and misleading claims. The 91-page document was compiled in July and published on Sunday. In a largely symbolic vote at the Democratic National Convention on Monday, it was approved as the party’s official platform for the next four years.

A woke introduction. The platform opens with a so-called “land acknowledgement,” declaring that the US is made up of “lands that have been stewarded through many centuries by the ancestors and descendants of Tribal Nations who have been here since time immemorial.” “While we meet in Chicago, we also recognize and honor the traditional homelands of the Anishinaabe, also known as the Council of the Three Fires: the Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi Nations,” it continues, before listing off other Native American tribes hailing from the Chicago region. Originating on university campuses, ‘Land acknowledgements’ have been embraced by progressive politicians and nonprofits in recent years. Conservatives have mocked the practice as overly politically correct, while some leftists have argued that land acknowledgements don’t go far enough, and should be backed by cash reparations.

Biden still in the race? The platform refers to Biden as the Democratic Party’s candidate at least 20 times, despite the 81-year-old suspending his campaign and endorsing Vice President Harris to run in his place last month. “President Biden, Vice President Harris, and Democrats are running to finish the job,” the platform’s second page declares, before listing a host of the president’s priorities for his “second term in office,” which include nominating more “diverse” judges and offering a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants. Regina Romero, the co-chair of the convention’s platform committee, told delegates that the document was written “prior to the president passing the torch in an act of love and patriotism,” and despite its mistakes remains a “forward-looking vision for our party that echoes the voice of all.” These references to Biden are “an open admission that Kamala has no policies of her own. She has no plan to fix the litany of crises she’s created,” Trump campaign spokesman Dylan Johnson said in a statement on Monday.

All about Trump. Throughout the platform, Biden’s record is repeatedly contrasted with Trump’s. Lines such as “while President Biden has stood up to the gun lobby, Trump is proud of doing their bidding” and “while President Biden has sought to appoint judges who look like America, three-quarters of Trump’s judicial appointees were men and 84 percent were white” appear on almost every page of the document. In total, Trump is mentioned 150 times in the platform, while Harris’ name appears only 32 times. Biden is named 287 times.

No Harris policies. All of the platform’s post-election promises are attributed to Biden, with the document omitting Harris’ recent economic proposals, which include financial assistance for first-time home buyers, a $6,000-per-child tax credit, and price controls on groceries. In the month since Biden ended his campaign, these economic proposals are the only policies Harris has announced. By contrast, Biden, Trump, and Hillary Clinton had all published extensive policy documents by this stage of the 2020 and 2016 election cycles.

Hoaxes and falsehoods. The document contains numerous mistruths and outright falsehoods, particularly about Trump. It claims, as Biden has in his speeches, that Trump called members of the military who died in war “suckers” and “losers,” and that he called neo-Nazi protesters “very fine people.” Neither anecdote is true. Biden and Harris’ accomplishments are similarly embellished. For example, the document claims that the president and vice president are “finally rebuilding” broadband infrastructure in the US, despite the fact that zero new connections have been built since Harris was appointed to lead the $42 billion initiative in 2021, according to Federal Communications Commission chief Brendan Carr.

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Peronism.

• Kamala Harris’ Radical Left Plan to Ruin America (Lacalle)

Price controls, higher taxes, government intervention, and subsidies paid for by printing a constantly devalued currency. These are the essential pillars of “21st century socialism” and the radical left Peronism that obliterated Argentina. These are also the main elements of the economic plan presented by Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party. Undoubtedly, this is the most radical socialist economic plan ever announced by the Democrats. According to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB), Harris’s proposals will cost $1.95 trillion over 10 years. However, it emphasizes that if certain measures become permanent, this figure could increase to $2.25 trillion. The Harris campaign has stated that these costs will be offset by a classic excuse of socialism in any election: “higher taxes on corporations and high earners.”

This is, obviously, ludicrous, because there is no revenue measure that will cover the already bloated $2 trillion annual deficit and an added $2 trillion. The mantra of “higher taxes for the rich” always means higher taxes and more inflation, a hidden tax, for you. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has already warned of the fiscal disaster of the United States, with an annual deficit of 6% of GDP. Despite not accounting for a recession and projecting record tax revenues from 2024 to 2034, the CBO predicts an explosion in the budget deficit from $1.9 trillion to $2.8 trillion by 2034, even before factoring in Harris’s new spending plan. This means that the adjusted deficit will rise above 6.9 percent of GDP by 2034, almost twice the average of 3.7 percent over the previous 50 years.

Following the Harris plan, the United States public debt will likely increase by $24 trillion in a decade. As I have explained, there is no set of revenue measures that can bring $2 trillion per year in additional tax receipts, and tax hikes will harm both investment and growth. An economy that generates an annual deficit of 6 percent of GDP to achieve a mere 2 percent annual growth is already on a dangerous path, and Harris’ plan would make it even worse. Kamala Harris promises to cut inflation by spending and printing more money, reducing competition, and attacking businesses. It has never worked and never will because it is upside-down economics. Welcome to the U.S. “Peronism.”. Imagine all those United States citizens who have escaped Latin American or European economies impoverished by interventionism to find a better opportunity in the United States only to find that the same policies will be implemented by Harris.

The narrative of price gouging and greedflation is simply false. In 2023, profit margins in the grocery industry hit the lowest level since 2019, at 1.6%, according to the IMF. Corporations, even if they were stupid and reckless, cannot make all prices rise constantly. Competition would eat away at their market share; newcomers would eliminate them, and aggregate prices would fall. Furthermore, stores and businesses cannot make aggregate prices soar, maintain the increase, and consolidate it, which is the measure of inflation (CPI) we read every month. The only thing that can make all prices rise and continue increasing at a slower pace is printing money and eroding the purchasing power of the currency.

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“..a plan that won’t just be negative for the country, it could very well be the hill that our country’s economy dies on..”

• Harris’ Unrealized Gains Tax Would Obliterate The US Economy (QTR)

On Tuesday, it was announced that Presidential candidate Kamala Harris would be supporting President Joe Biden’s tax proposals for 2025, which include a 44.6% capital gains rate and a 25% tax on unrealized gains. Having used up all of the rest of the batshit, insane, counterintuitive economic dirty tricks left in the “we’ll literally do anything but cut spending” bag, the Biden administration began pushing this tax idea in April 2024 when I first wrote about it. Unrealized gains taxation could be the most destructive idea for our country since prohibition, I joked at the time. As part of its budget proposal for the 2025 fiscal year, the Biden administration was trying to raise an addition $4.3 trillion over 10 years in the worst way possible: imposing a minimum tax equal to 25 percent of a taxpayer’s taxable income and unrealized capital gains less the sum of their regular tax, for taxpayers with wealth over $100 million.

Putting aside the fact that this high-risk idea only amounts to a pittance, $430 billion per year, the introduction of taxing unrealized gains could be one of the worst slippery slopes we ever dare to roll our country’s economy down. I mean, shit, we could save $1 trillion just by not sending $100 billion a year to other nations for starters. But I digress. For an outline of exactly what an unrealized gains tax is, here’s the American Institute on Economic Research: A tax on unrealized capital gains means that individuals are penalized for owning appreciating assets, regardless of whether they have realized any actual income from selling them. If you purchased a stock for $100 this year, for example, and it increased to $110 next year, you would pay the assigned tax rate on the $10 capital gain. You didn’t sell the asset, so you don’t realize the $10 appreciation, but must pay the tax regardless.

Taxing unrealized capital gains contradicts the basic principles of fairness and property rights essential for a free and prosperous society. Taxation, if we’re going to have it on income, should be based on actual income earned, not on paper gains that may never materialize. AIER notes that implementing such a tax not only deeply infringes upon personal liberty and private property rights — but I can’t help but think about how it also sets a destructive wrecking ball rolling down a slippery slope for the first time in our nation’s history. And, given the precarious state of our nation’s finances, it doesn’t seem like the best time to start spitballing about new risky ideas that may or may not catch on only because they sound like they are addressing the problem of a widening wealth gap that Federal Reserve policies created and continue to exacerbate to begin with.

If the administration really wanted to address the problem of wealth inequality, it would be setting its sights on the central bank that sacrificed price stability so it could spray trillions of dollars in “stimulus” toward financial assets, while cutting American families paltry checks of just $600, during COVID. When I did the math during COVID, the total amount spent to bail out the country when we decided to shut down the economy and have the Federal Reserve replace it with a fiat house of cards amounted to something like $17,500 per every citizen in the United States. Except, again, only $600 of that went to each individual. The rest went to the financial sector, in turn widening the inequality gap further as billionaires like Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, and Jeff Bezos saw tens of billions of dollars added to their net worth in a matter of months. And so now, rather than take tangible, decisive action to actually address the problem, the Harris administration is putting forth a plan that won’t just be negative for the country, it could very well be the hill that our country’s economy dies on. And to be honest, I’m not being hyperbolic.

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One last go for Joe. Let’s dig up a golden oldie. Nobody remembers Robert Mueller anyway. From another article:

“50 to 70 million Americans suffer from some sort of sleep disorder, and a midnight Joe Biden speech could be the perfect remedy.”

• Trump Bows Down To Putin – Biden (RT)

US President Joe Biden has accused his predecessor, Donald Trump, of being unfit for the role of commander-in-chief, claiming he ‘bows down to dictators’. The outgoing president spoke at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on Monday to urge voters to support the candidacy of Vice President Kamala Harris in the November election. Last month, he was pressured by party heavyweights to drop out of the race after a disastrous debate against Trump. Biden brought up the story about Trump allegedly calling World War I soldiers buried in Europe “suckers and losers” to attack the former president, saying someone like this cannot lead the US military.

”No commander-in-chief should ever bow down to a dictator the way Trump bows down to Putin. I never have, and I promise you, Kamala Haris will never do it,” he said. Trump broke from the policy of his Democratic predecessor, Barack Obama, by greenlighting the delivery of military aid to Ukraine, fueling tensions with Russia over NATO’s intention to make Ukraine a member of the US-led bloc. In 2021, Moscow proposed freezing NATO expansion to address its concerns, but was told by Washington that it cannot dictate who joins the organization.

The Republican nominee now claims he can end the ongoing hostilities between Russia and Ukraine, which broke out in February 2022 under Biden’s watch. Presumably, Trump intends to leverage US aid to Kiev to force concessions on its part. Biden has vowed to prop up Ukraine against Russia “for as long as it takes” to defeat it. During his speech in Chicago, Biden took credit for getting European members of NATO to unite in support of Ukraine. He claimed that Europeans have been looking at Russia “with dread” since the times of Napoleon. Trump has argued that getting along with foreign leaders, including those that some may call dictators, is a good thing for a president, as this helps cool tensions and prevent unnecessary conflicts.

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Where illegal turns into unauthorized… What’s in a word?

Only 4% come from South America?!

• Where Unauthorized Migrants In The US Come From (SCF)

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“How would that look for the United States, when the United States is going to fight the war on behalf of a genocidal regime and then bring down the world economy?”

• War With Iran Would Bring Global Economic Collapse, Isolate US (Sp.)

On July 30, a senior leader of the Lebanese Hezbollah movement, Fouad Shukur, was assassinated in Beirut, a few hours later the political leader of the Palestinian movement Hamas and the chief negotiator for the movement in ceasefire talks with Israel, Ismail Haniyeh, was assassinated in Tehran. Nearly three weeks after the assassination of Shukur and Haniyeh, the world is still waiting for Iran’s retaliation against Israel for the attacks. It inevitably will, but the more pertinent question is what comes next. “The real question is not what Iran does, the question is what does the United States do?” asked Mohammad Marandi, a professor of English Literature and Orientalism at the University of Tehran on Sputnik’s Fault Lines on Monday. “If the United States gets involved in the war, then I think it’s the United States [that] will lose more than anyone else.”

Marandi explained that a war between the US and Israel on one side and Iran on the other would expand regionally and include the US-allied dictators who would be seen as complicit with the United States. “So there will no longer be any gas or oil installations in the Persian Gulf region and beyond that will be able to export anything. So, that would lead to a global economic collapse,” Marandi continued. “It won’t lead to a recession or a depression, it will lead to a deep depression – something that we haven’t experienced before in recent centuries, even in the 1930s.” Iran has no choice but to respond more forcefully than it did after an Israeli airstrike struck the Iranian consulate in Damascus, Syria. That attack, in which Iran utilized hundreds of drones to overwhelm Israeli air defenses and then hit military targets with missiles, was described as restrained outside of Western and Israeli media. Still, less than four months later, Israel struck Iran again.

“By definition, [that] means it was inadequate for a permanent solution. So, the Iranians are going to have to hit harder,” explained Marandi. Despite a letter signed by the US and a few European countries telling Iran to stand down, most of the world understands that Iran has been restrained and reasonable compared to their Israeli counterparts. That will further isolate the United States if it joins Israel in a war with Iran, which will exacerbate its economic issues if there is a global collapse. “How would that look for the United States, when the United States is going to fight the war on behalf of a genocidal regime and then bring down the world economy? It will be devastating to the United States because no one will sympathize with it,” Marandi added. “The point is that they are dragging the world towards a catastrophe. This genocide will have consequences. And an expanded war will have enormous consequences,” he concluded.

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“Zelensky can’t force God to fight.”

• Ukrainian MPs Pave Way For Ban On Largest Christian Church (RT)

The Ukrainian parliament has approved a law that would allow authorities to ban the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), which Kiev has repeatedly accused of having ties to Russia, according to an MP. The legislation also outright bans the Russian Orthodox Church and all affiliated religious institutions. In a series of Telegram posts on Tuesday, lawmaker Yaroslav Zheleznyak said the parliament had passed a law banning certain religious organizations on the territory of Ukraine, particularly those linked to Russia. “Among the people, it [is called] the law banning the Moscow Church,” he said. The law was approved by 265 deputies, with 29 voting against, and four abstaining. The law, which will take effect in 30 days, bans the activities of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) and all affiliated religious organizations. However, it contains a caveat that gives the UOC nine months to sever all ties with the ROC.

While the UOC declared full autonomy from the Moscow Patriarchate several weeks after the Ukraine conflict broke out in 2022, Kiev continued to accuse its clergy of having ties to Russia, often raiding churches and making arrests. Parliament Speaker Ruslan Stephanchuk acknowledged last week that the law would certainly result in “the Russian church in Ukraine” being banned, presumably referring to the UOC. Around the same time, Vladimir Zelensky appeared to refer to the imminent move, which he said would “reinforce Ukraine’s spiritual independence.” Last week, the initiative was endorsed by the All-Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations (AUCCRO), which represents all denominations in the country. It claimed that Russia remains the main “threat” to religious freedom in Ukraine.

The Russian Orthodox Church, however, has dismissed AUCCRO’s decision as illegitimate, noting that UOC delegates had not been invited to take part in the meeting to discuss the matter. Ukraine has long experienced religious tensions, with a number of entities claiming to be the true Ukrainian Orthodox Church. The two main rival factions are the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and the Kiev-backed Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU), which is considered by the Russian Orthodox Church to be schismatic. The UOC remains the largest Orthodox church in Ukraine, with more than 8,000 parishes across the country. However, some of these parishes are choosing to transfer to the jurisdiction of the OCU under pressure from authorities in Kiev.

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Motorwoke.

• Harley-Davidson Hits Brakes On Diversity (RT)

American motorcycle maker Harley-Davidson has ended its Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiative, becoming the latest major US company to distance itself from ‘woke’ policies. DEI refers to measures aimed at ensuring equal representation for people of all backgrounds, regardless of their race, gender, or disability status. The iconic motorbike brand, known for its robustly masculine image, said it would instead focus on “retaining our loyal riding community.” Harley-Davidson was targeted last month by conservative influencer Robby Starbuck, who has pledged to “expose” companies for their “woke policies” and to “bring sanity back to corporate America.” In a statement on X (formerly Twitter) on Monday, Harley-Davidson said it would review all sponsorships and outside organizations with which it affiliates.

The bike manufacturer said it would be moving forward focusing “exclusively on growing the sport of motorcycling.” It also stated that it was “saddened by the negativity on social media over the last few weeks.” The company suggested that it would drop some sponsorships, which could include LGBTQ Pride festivals, and end its relationship with the Human Rights Campaign, a leading LGBTQ advocacy group. Harley-Davidson has been a corporate member of the Wisconsin LBGT Chamber of Commerce, and has reportedly funded Pride-themed events. The company has come under fire from many US bikers for taking part in various LGBTQ initiatives, and had reportedly lost some of its fanbase.

In July, Starbuck claimed that the brand had been “one of the most beloved brands in America but recently on CEO Jochen Zeitz’s watch, they’ve gone totally woke,” as he launched his campaign against the motorcycle maker’s policies. In its statement, the Milwaukee-based firm also said it had not “operated a DEI function since April 2024,” and that it does not have “hiring quotas” or “supplier diversity spend goals.” Starbuck welcomed the company’s move on X, praising it as “another win for our movement.” Earlier, American rural retailer Tractor Supply and farm equipment maker John Deere also backtracked on their corporate diversity policy following pressure campaigns led by the activist. Critics of DEI have questioned the efficacy of initiatives aimed at making organizations more diverse and inclusive, leading to pressure on companies to scale back certain programs.

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Said it before: the rot is everywhere. How can you undo that?

• Boeing Halts 777 Test Flights (RT)

US aircraft manufacturer Boeing has halted test-flights of its 777X twin-engine jetliner after post-flight inspections identified failures of crucial parts on three out of four test aircraft, industry outlet the Air Current reported on Monday, citing sources. According to the aviation news service, a titanium thrust link, part of the structure that mounts the engine to the aircraft, was found severed on one jet following a test-flight in Hawaii. Further inspections found similar faults on two more aircraft, the Air Current cited two people familiar with the matter as saying. “Our team is replacing the part and capturing any learnings from the component and will resume flight testing when ready,” Boeing confirmed to Air Current in an emailed statement. The 777X’s engines are the largest and most powerful ever built, measuring nearly 3.5 meters in diameter and weighing 11 tons each.

Also on Monday, the US Federal Aviation Administration ordered inspections of another Boeing aircraft, the 787 Dreamliner. In an incident in March, a 787 jet went into a sudden mid-air dive, leaving more than 50 passengers injured. A number of flaws have been discovered in Boeing aircraft in recent months, leading to safety concerns and investigations. In July, the company agreed to pay a fine of $243.6 million and plead guilty to fraud for its attempts to conceal faults with the stability system responsible for 2018 and 2019 crashes that killed nearly 350 people. Under the plea deal, the manufacturer has agreed to invest at least $455 million over the next three years to improve its safety and compliance programs and submit to a three-year probation by a special monitor appointed by the US government.

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Yeadon: A completely different take on ivermectin

https://twitter.com/i/status/1825808269039849903

 

 

Tigress

 

 

Cubs
https://twitter.com/i/status/1825749033933005062

 

 

Emanuel

 

 

Mars&Jupiter

 

 

 

 

Support the Automatic Earth in wartime with Paypal, Bitcoin and Patreon.

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle June 25 2024

Jun 252024
 
 June 25, 2024  Posted by at 9:02 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  60 Responses »

 

• Assange Leaves UK Prison To Finalize Plea Deal With US (RT)
• US Escalated Ukraine Conflict to New Level in Sevastopol (Sp.)
• Russia ‘Can’t Not Respond’ To Crimea Attack – Ron Paul (RT)
• Between Kremlin Cup And General Staff Lip After Sunday Attacks (Helmer)
• Putin’s “War” To Re-shape The American Zeitgeist (Alastair Crooke)
• Article 5 Won’t Save Ukraine if It Joins NATO (Sp.)
• Desperate Ukraine Needs Massive Debt Bailout (Miles)
• Von der Leyen Must Go – Orban (RT)
• EU To Bypass Hungarian Veto On Tapping Russian Assets – FT (RT)
• The Land that Law Forgot: SCOTUS and the New York Legal Wasteland (Turley)
• Boeing Faces Possible Criminal Indictment – Reuters (RT)
• Death Of The Petrodollar: What Really Happened Between The US and Saudis? (RT)
• Here It Comes (Kunstler)

 

 

 

 

Julian


https://twitter.com/i/status/1805485661102772656

 

 

CNN gag order

CNN apology
https://twitter.com/i/status/1805282114255892876

 

 

Kim

 

 

Orban

 

 

Stop it!
https://twitter.com/i/status/1805415390819824083

 

 

Disguise

 

 

 

 

“Julian Assange is free. He left Belmarsh maximum security prison on the morning of 24 June, after having spent 1901 days there..”

• Assange Leaves UK Prison To Finalize Plea Deal With US (RT)

WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange was released from a UK prison on Tuesday morning, his team has said. He has spent five years in the Belmarsh Prison in London while fighting extradition to the US, where he was indicted on 18 counts of disseminating classified information. According to the newly filed court documents, Assange will soon strike a plea deal in order to avoid further time behind bars. “Julian Assange is free. He left Belmarsh maximum security prison on the morning of 24 June, after having spent 1901 days there,” WikiLeaks wrote on X (formerly Twitter). “He was granted bail by the High Court in London and was released at Stansted airport during the afternoon, where he boarded a plane and departed the UK.” WikiLeaks said that the international campaign to free Assange has created “the space for a long period of negotiations with the US Department of Justice, leading to a deal that has not yet been formally finalized.”

“As he returns to Australia, we thank all who stood by us, fought for us, and remained utterly committed in the fight for his freedom,” WikiLeaks wrote. According to a letter from the DOJ, Assange will appear in court in Saipan, in the Northern Mariana Islands, a US territory in the Pacific, at 9 am local time on Wednesday. “We anticipate that the defendant will plead guilty to the charge… of conspiring to unlawfully obtain and disseminate classified information relating to the national defense of the United States,” the letter said. The DOJ said it expects Assange to return to his home country of Australia after the proceedings. Under Assange’s helm, WikiLeaks published multiple top secret files, including documents related to the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well a trove of US diplomatic cables.

In 2010, the organization published a video of a US military helicopter attacking civilians in Baghdad in 2007 after mistaking them for insurgents. Fearing extradition to the US, Assange spent seven years hiding inside the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. He was ejected from the premises in 2019, when Ecuador revoked his asylum status. The activist was immediately arrested by British police and subsequently spent five years in Belmarsh after being found guilty of jumping bail. Assange’s legal team, family and associates have repeatedly described the conditions in Belmarsh as “torture” and warned that his health had significantly deteriorated behind bars.

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“Both ATACMS variants have cluster warheads, prohibited by the international Convention on Cluster Munitions — which the US declined to sign.”

• US Escalated Ukraine Conflict to New Level in Sevastopol (Sp.)

Washington’s involvement in the Ukrainian missile strike on Sevastopol is undeniable, given that it was conducted with the US-made ATACMS missiles programmed by American specialists, while a US RQ-4 Global Hawk reconnaissance drone was operating near Crimea that day, Russia’s Foreign Ministry stated on June 24. “The US is very complicit in this,” Earl Rasmussen, a retired US Army lieutenant colonel and international consultant, told Sputnik, commenting on the Ukrainian missile attack. “It had cluster bombs as munitions as well. Typically, for most countries it is not acceptable.” The expert said it was “highly likely the Global Hawk was providing reconnaissance, targeting information and potentially guidance information for the ATACMS itself. “ATACMS… essentially needs to coordinate with something. So, typically a lot of times drones’ or satellite information are used to help guide the target and guide the missile,” Rasmussen explained.

“ATACMS is pre-programed to some degree. But to ensure that it gets to its destination, there’s definitely communication of some type with an aerial drone system.” On Sunday at 12:15 pm local time, Ukraine attacked the Russian city of Sevastopol with five ATACMS missiles equipped with cluster bomblets. Russian air defenses intercepted four missiles, but the explosion of the fifth cluster warhead led to the death of four civilians with 153 more injured, according to local authroirties. The US government admitted in October 2023 that it had covertly provided Ukraine with a model of ATACMS with a range 165 kilometers. Longer-range ATACMS, capable of striking targets at a distance of up to 300 kilometers, were secretly included in the $300 million aid package and delivered to Ukraine in April. Both ATACMS variants have cluster warheads, prohibited by the international Convention on Cluster Munitions — which the US declined to sign.

In May, Politico reported that after Ukraine received ATACMS missiles, it also expressed interest in obtaining MQ-9 Reaper spy drones from the US, stressing that it needs new surveillance capabilities to strike Russian targets “deep behind the front lines.” EurasianTimes commentators suggested that “with the acquisition of the 300-kilometer-range variant of ATACMS, the thinking in Ukraine is that pairing it with an established unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV) is the only way to attain some gains in the large artillery and ground systems-centric war.” The Defense Post also reported that US-made ATACMS and MQ-9 Reapers “could work in tandem in Ukraine, with the Reaper collecting target information and the ATACMS ensuring precision strikes.”

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“Are they going to twiddle their thumbs and walk away? They might – for a day or two – ponder it, but there will be something that they’re going to do.”

• Russia ‘Can’t Not Respond’ To Crimea Attack – Ron Paul (RT)

There is tremendous popular pressure on Moscow to retaliate against the US over Sunday’s ATACMS missile strike on a beach near Sevastopol, former US Congressman Ron Paul has said. Five civilians were killed and over 150 injured by cluster munitions from a US-supplied missile launched by Ukrainian forces. Among the dead were at least two children. Paul, a retired lawmaker from Texas, described the strike as “a Ukrainian and American attack on Russia” on Monday’s Ron Paul Liberty Report. He added that some kind of escalation was inevitable after the US supplied long-range missiles to Ukraine and gave Kiev permission to use them for strikes deep inside Russia. “What’s Russia going to do about this?” Paul asked. “Are they going to twiddle their thumbs and walk away? They might – for a day or two – ponder it, but there will be something that they’re going to do.”

While Moscow might prefer a “minimal response,” Paul continued, “They can’t not respond.” The Russian public simply demands that something be done, he added. Russian Foreign Ministry officials summoned US Ambassador Lynne Tracy on Monday and told her that the “bloody atrocity” in Crimea would “not go unpunished.” According to the Russian Defense Ministry, the Ukrainian military fired five ATACMS missiles at Crimea. While Russian air defense systems destroyed four of the projectiles mid-air, the fifth was damaged, veered off course, and exploded over a packed beach.

The Kremlin has described the beach bombing as an act of terrorism that the US was as responsible for as Ukraine. The attack happened while a US drone loitered over the Black Sea, and ATACMS launches rely on targeting and intelligence provided by the Americans, Moscow’s ambassador in Washington, Anatoly Antonov, said. Paul and his co-host, Daniel McAdams, wondered if the missile attack was a deliberate escalation to justify further direct involvement of NATO inside Ukraine. They approvingly quoted Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Georgia Republican, who on Monday condemned the attack as something the US military should not be doing. “The only border our American military should be defending is our own border,” Greene wrote on X (formerly Twitter).

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“..the Special Military Operation is not in fact a war, and that Russian war tactics and strategy should be limited to retaliation, not to the defeat and demilitarization of the US and NATO on the Ukrainian battlefield.”

• Between Kremlin Cup And General Staff Lip After Sunday Attacks (Helmer)

A salvo of five ATACMS (Army Tactical Missile System) missiles was intercepted over the Uchkuevka beach at Sevastopol just after midday. In celebration of the 30-degree sunshine and the Orthodox Trinity holiday, there were a large number of people in the water and on the sand. The missiles were intercepted in the air, but shrapnel from the detonating warheads struck the beach. At latest count, four people were killed, two of them children; 151 people, including 27 children, were wounded; 82 were hospitalized, 13 of them in serious condition. Boris Rozhin, editor in chief of the Colonel Cassad military blog, was in Sevastopol and he reported from one of the hospitals to which the casualties were taken. His reports started at 12:23 local time and continued for almost twelve hours. Rozhin is one of the independent Russian war correspondents calling on the Kremlin to remove the limit which has been placed on attacking the US Air Force (USAF) drones and other NATO aircraft which operate over the Black Sea, in international waters off the Crimean shore, to provide flight course, evasion of Russian air defence units, and target coordinates to the American and Ukrainian ground crews operating the ATACMS batteries and executing the fire orders.

Russian reports indicate the launch point for the Sevastopol beach attack was Nikolaev on the Ukrainian mainland. If so, the range of the missiles was at least 300 kilometres – longer than the US has publicly admitted. This also means that to be effective in defence against the repetition of such attacks against civilians, the proposed Russian demilitarized zone for the Ukraine, or “sanitary zone” as Putin has called it, must stretch from Nikolaev westward to Kiev. Rozhin has blamed the US explicitly in language repeated by other military bloggers. They mean to say, as they have been repeating in recent weeks, that the USAF drones used in the Sevastopol attacks should be destroyed. Just after 1600 Moscow time on Sunday, the Russian Defense Ministry issued its bulletin. The text, auto- translated into English, reads:

Note that that the Ministry, and the General Staff behind it, target the US as directly engaged in the operation of the missile attack. However, they start by calling the attack a “terrorist” strike, not an act of war. The wording of the statement also avoids identifying the USAF drones and other airborne electronic warfare systems offshore from Crimea. Instead, it refers to “satellite intelligence”. These are ideological references, not military ones. The distinction between Ukrainian acts of terrorism and war is Kremlin policy. By terming such attacks, including the Crocus City Hall attack in Moscow in March, terrorism but not war, the policy follows that the Special Military Operation is not in fact a war, and that Russian war tactics and strategy should be limited to retaliation, not to the defeat and demilitarization of the US and NATO on the Ukrainian battlefield.

At 1715 the Kremlin followed with a communiqué headlined: “The President reached out to the Government’s social bloc and the military following the attack by the Ukrainian Armed Forces against Sevastopol.” The two-paragraph statement said: “Vladimir Putin has been in touch with senior officials from the Government’s social ministries and agencies and healthcare institutions on an ongoing basis considering the urgency of providing care to the attack victims. The President has also been interacting with the military. The Ukrainian Armed Forces targeted Sevastopol with an intentional missile strike in the afternoon of June 23, using five ATACMS US-made tactical missiles. The attack left at least 124 people wounded or injured, to a varying degree of severity, including 27 children.”

The president’s statement was issued from the Kremlin in Moscow. Putin, who had returned from his visit to North Korea and Vietnam on June 20, has remained in the Moscow area. As he prepared to leave Vietnam on June 20, Putin was asked by a Kremlin pool reporter from Kommersant what he has meant by his threats to attack the US and NATO sources of the Ukrainian missile and drone attacks on Russian targets in Crimea, the Donbass, and the hinterland regions. “Andrei Kolesnikov: Kommersant newspaper, Andrei Kolesnikov. Can the use of Western long-range weapons be viewed as an act of aggression? Overall, can the shelling of Belgorod and Russian territory in general be viewed as an act of aggression? Vladimir Putin: This matter requires further investigation, but it is close. We are looking into it. What are we dealing with in this case? Those who supply these weapons believe that they are not at war with us.

As I have already said, including in Pyongyang, we reserve the right to supply our weapons to other regions of the world. I would not rule out this possibility in terms of our agreements with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. We can also adopt the same position on the question of where these weapons end up. Take the West, for example. They supply weapons to Ukraine, saying: We are not in control here, so the way Ukraine uses them is none of our business. Why cannot we adopt the same position and say that we supply something to somebody but have no control over what happens afterwards? Let them think about it. Therefore, at this stage, our primary objective is to defend against these strikes.”

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“Putin dismisses devices such as ‘ceasefires’ or ‘freezes’. He is seeking something permanent..”

• Putin’s “War” To Re-shape The American Zeitgeist (Alastair Crooke)

The G7 and the subsequent Swiss ‘Bürgenstock Conference’ can – in retrospect – be understood as preparation for a prolonged Ukraine war. The three centrepiece announcements emerging from the G7 – the 10 year Ukraine security pact; the $50 ‘billion Ukraine loan’; and the seizing of interest on Russian frozen funds – make the point. The war is about to escalate. These stances were intended as preparation of the western public ahead of events. And in case of any doubts, the blistering belligerency towards Russia emerging from the European election leaders was plain enough: They sought to convey a clear impression of Europe preparing for war. What then lies ahead? According to White House Spokesman John Kirby: “Washington’s position on Kiev is “absolutely clear”: “First, they’ve got to win this war”. “They gotta win the war first. So, number one: We’re doing everything we can to make sure they can do that. Then when the war’s over … Washington will assist in building up Ukraine’s military industrial base”.

If that was not plain, the U.S. intent to prolong and take the war deep into Russia was underlined by National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan: “Authorization for Ukrainian use of American weapons for cross-border attacks extends to anywhere [from which] Russian forces are coming across the border”. He affirmed, too, that Ukraine can use F-16s to attack Russia and use U.S. supplied air defence systems “to take down Russian planes – even if in Russian airspace – if they’re about to fire into Ukrainian airspace”. Ukrainian pilots have the latitude to judge ‘the intent’ of Russian fighter aircraft? Expect the parameters of this ‘authorisation’ to widen quickly – deeper to air bases from which Russian fighter bombers launch. Understanding that the war is about to transform radically – and extremely dangerously – President Putin (in his speech to the Foreign Ministry Board) detailed just how the world had arrived at this pivotal juncture – one which could extend to nuclear exchanges.

The gravity of the situation itself demanded the making of one ‘last chance’ offer to the West, which Putin emphatically said was “no temporary ceasefire for Kiev to prepare a new offensive; nor was it about freezing the conflict”; but rather, his proposals were about the war’s final completion.= “If, as before, Kiev and western capitals refuse it – then at the end, that’s their business”, Putin said. Just to be clear, Putin almost certainly never expected the proposals to be received in the West other than by the scorn and derision with which they, in fact, were met. Nor would Putin trust – for a moment – the West not to renege on an agreement, were some arrangement to be reached on these lines. If so, why then did President Putin make such a proposal last weekend, if the West cannot be trusted and its reaction was so predictable?

Well, maybe we need to search for the nesting inner Matryoshka doll, rather than fix on the outer casing: Putin’s ‘final completion’ likely will not credibly be achieved through some itinerant peace broker. In his Foreign Ministry address, Putin dismisses devices such as ‘ceasefires’ or ‘freezes’. He is seeking something permanent: An arrangement that has ‘solid legs’; one that has durability. Such a solution – as Putin before has hinted – requires a new world security architecture to come into being; and were that to happen, then a complete solution for Ukraine would flow as an implicit part to a new world order. That is to say, with the microcosm of a Ukraine solution flowing implicitly from the macrocosm agreement between the U.S. and the ‘Heartland’ powers – settling the borders to their respective security interests.

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“..an attack on one is an attack on all” does not automatically trigger a US military response.”

• Article 5 Won’t Save Ukraine if It Joins NATO (Sp.)

As NATO members prepare to celebrate the alliance’s 75th anniversary in Washington next month, the US and key allies including the UK and Germany are debating how strongly to commit to Ukraine’s NATO bid. Washington and Berlin rejected a European plan to provide Ukraine with an “irreversible” path to the organization earlier this week, instead offering a “lighter commitment” with no concrete timeline, according to British newspaper The Telegraph. The Kiev regime has repeatedly urged the West to accept it into NATO. However, even if Ukraine were admitted, it would not be guaranteed NATO boots on the ground or greater assistance than it already receives. It is widely believed that Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty unquestionably commits NATO members to provide military support should one of them be attacked. In reality it doesn’t, according to US academics, legal experts and lawmakers.

Article 5 reads: “The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them . . . shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defense recognized by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking . . . such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area. But Article 11 further explains that the treaty’s “provisions [shall be] carried out by the Parties in accordance with their respective constitutional processes.” The treaty’s language actually means that it’s up to NATO member-states and their respective legislatures to determine whether and how to come to the rescue of their peers.

“It is possible for the US and other Western countries to stay out of a conflict that involves a NATO country without having to break their alliance commitments,” Dan Reiter, a professor of political science at Emory University, and Brian Greenhill, an associate professor of political science at the University at Albany of the State University of New York wrote for The Conversation earlier this week. “The NATO treaty’s language contains loopholes that let member countries remain out of other members’ wars in certain situations.” The political scientists draw attention to the fact that whereas the treaty envisions the possibility of using military force in the event of an external attack it “does not include a clear definition of what an ‘armed attack’ actually is.” Previously that allowed NATO to argue that a violent act against a member wasn’t necessarily “enough” to define it as an “armed attack,” the academics note. According to Reiter and Greenhill, NATO members “have only formally invoked Article 5 once” in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, helping Washington patrol its skies from mid-October 2001 to mid-May 2002.

Nonetheless most NATO member states chose not to send troops to Afghanistan when the US declared war on the Taliban*. The academics point out that NATO states who didn’t join Washington’s “war on terror” were neither seen as breaking the alliance’s treaty nor sanctioned or ejected from the alliance. Additionally, NATO members have also used the issue of geography to stay out of their peers’ conflicts, according to the academics. Thus when the UK and Argentina went to war over the Falkland Islands in 1982, the US and other NATO states referred to the fact that the treaty provides for restoring and maintaining security in “the North Atlantic area.” The Falkland Islands – also known as the Islas Malvinas – are a South Atlantic archipelago. Last June, Senator Rand Paul addressed the issue of Article 5’s common defense provision to underscore that “an attack on one is an attack on all” does not automatically trigger a US military response.

“The Constitution grants to Congress the sole authority to determine where and when we send our sons and daughters to fight. We cannot delegate that responsibility to the president, the courts, an international body, or our allies,” Paul said. The senator condemned those he claimed deceive the public about what America’s commitments under Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty really are.

On December 6, 2023, US President Joe Biden urged American lawmakers to green-light a US aid package for Ukraine by claiming that otherwise “we’ll have something that we don’t seek and that we don’t have today: American troops fighting Russian troops — American troops fighting Russian troops if [Russia] moves into other parts of NATO.” “We’ve committed as a NATO member that we’d defend every inch of NATO territory,” Biden insisted. Moscow has resolutely rejected the idea of attacking any NATO member state as absurd. However, even if such a scenario occurred, it would be up to US lawmakers, not President Biden, to decide whether the US would put boots on the ground to protect its ally. “Any military confrontation between Russia and NATO would surely be of a substantial nature, scope, and duration — and would therefore require congressional authorization,” the Brennan Center for Justice (BCJ), a nonprofit law and public policy institute at New York University’s School of Law, explains.

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Bottomless.

• Desperate Ukraine Needs Massive Debt Bailout (Miles)

With Kiev’s gloomy financial prospects showing no sign of improving, one British newspaper is insisting that Western bondholders must forgive a substantial portion of the country’s arrears. “Kiev was already in a complex debt situation going into the war, having restructured its private debt in 2015,” noted the Financial Times broadsheet in an editorial published Sunday. “The country must now balance borrowing to fund the war with managing old debt obligations.” “Doing so is a tricky juggling act,” the paper’s editorial board observed, claiming substantial Western investment would be needed as the country rebuilds. At stake in current negotiations is $20 billion owed to private bondholders, just a small portion of the government’s $152 billion in overall outstanding debt. Ukraine’s debt payments have been paused since the outbreak of the Russo-Ukraine conflict but are scheduled to resume in August.

A recent G7-backed deal to reduce the amount owed by 60% was rejected by investors last week, who counteroffered a 20% write-down. “The war has gone on longer than expected,” the paper noted. Multiple reports have revealed the United States intervened to quash peace talks between Moscow and Kiev early on in the conflict, with Volodymyr Zelensky eventually issuing an edict preventing the country from negotiating with Russia. Washington’s sabotage of efforts to end the war was finally acknowledged by The New York Times and other mainstream outlets earlier this month. The editorial proposes three options for Ukraine – a default, another pause of payments, and continued insistence on a more significant debt reduction. Another pause would see the interest on the debt continue to balloon, while a default would further damage the country’s reputation and distract from the country’s efforts on the battlefield as Moscow appears poised to deliver a knockout blow.

Kiev was widely acknowledged as a perilous environment for foreign investors for decades before the current conflagration, with British newspaper The Guardian calling Ukraine “the most corrupt nation in Europe.” Corruption has remained endemic among government officials since the country’s independence from the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. Last year, defense minister Oleksii Reznikov was fired after millions of dollars of fraud was uncovered in procurement deals for the country’s armed forces. Ukraine has meanwhile relied on aid from Western countries merely to continue funding basic government services, a fact that has created controversy as increasing numbers of Americans tell pollsters they believe the US is spending too much money propping up the Kiev regime. Controversial investment firms like BlackRock and JPMorganChase are set to receive billions of dollars in profit from reconstruction efforts, with Ukraine’s indebtedness set to perpetuate Western influence in the country for years to come.

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“I’m not happy about the way things are going,” Orban said. “We have a structural problem.”

• Von der Leyen Must Go – Orban (RT)

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has called for Ursula von der Leyen to be replaced as president of the European Commission, describing the five years of her tenure as the “worst” in the history of the EU. He told reporters from the German media group Funke on Sunday that the EU’s green transition had gone against the economic and industrial interests of the bloc, while its migration package had also proven entirely unsuccessful. “The past five years have been perhaps the worst five years in the history of the EU. The successes of the European Commission and the Brussels elite are weak,” Orban said. The EU needs efficient leadership and there are “plenty” of talented politicians “capable of doing this job,” the Hungarian prime minister said. He claimed that the results of the recent European Parliament elections had also shown that people want change in Brussels.

Voters shifted significantly to the right in the elections earlier this month, with ruling coalitions in Germany and France being comprehensively trounced by right-wing parties. “But as it looks now, the same ruling coalition will remain in power. I’m not happy about the way things are going,” Orban said. “We have a structural problem.” Centrist parties retained a majority in the European Parliament, with von der Leyen’s European People’s Party (EPP) winning 190 seats. She is seeking a second term as European Commission president, declaring that her goal is to “build a broad majority for a strong Europe,” and to keep Brussels on a “pro-Ukraine path.”

Members of the European Parliament will have their say in confirming the next Commission president in a vote scheduled for 18 July. Von der Leyen will have to win a majority of MEPs’ votes. Orban also said that if Europeans want to “keep pace with the Americans,” they will have to “rise up again.” He lauded former US President Donald Trump, saying he has “101% confidence” in him, and described him a “man of peace” because he “didn’t start a single war.” Orban has long been a vocal critic of the West’s approach to the Ukraine conflict, particularly its arms shipments to Kiev.

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“..the bloc’s workaround was “sophisticated as every legal decision, but it flies.”

• EU To Bypass Hungarian Veto On Tapping Russian Assets – FT (RT)

The European Union has developed a scheme to use profits from frozen Russian assets to secure a $50 billion loan for Ukraine, which will be used to purchase arms, the Financial Times reported on Monday, citing the bloc’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell and other sources. The loophole effectively bypasses Hungary’s opposition to legislation that would have allowed the EU to hand over interest accrued on Russian funds to Ukraine. In an interview with the FT, Borrell said that since Budapest had opposed an EU agreement to transfer revenue to Ukraine, it “should not be part of the decision to use this money.” He added that the bloc’s workaround was “sophisticated as every legal decision, but it flies.” The West froze around $300 billion in Russian sovereign assets when the Ukraine conflict escalated, trapping around $280 billion in the EU.

Earlier this year, Brussels proposed seizing the interest earned on the assets to acquire weapons for Ukraine. The suggestion faced resistance from Hungary, a vocal critic of the West’s approach to the Ukraine conflict, particularly its arms shipments to Kiev. Under the US-led initiative, proceeds generated by Russia’s frozen assets from next year will be used to pay off the loan. The legal loophole allowing the EU to tap Russian assets is likely to suffice in guaranteeing the payout of the loan, the outlet said, citing officials familiar with the matter. However, Budapest can still block an EU decision to extend sanctions on Russian funds, which has to be renewed every six months by the bloc’s 27 members, the officials added.

To placate Hungary, the EU proposed a deal under which its share of the bloc’s funds would not be used to purchase weapons for Ukraine in exchange for not vetoing other members transferring the revenue to Kiev, according to Borrell. “We have offered Hungary: your money will not be used to support Ukraine in any means. Not just lethal, but on anything,” Borrell said. The proposal, however, has been rejected by Budapest. Moscow has denounced the decision to transfer profits from its assets to Ukraine as a blatant and illegal “expropriation.”

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Note the Pacific Ocean in the cover. And Canada.

• The Land that Law Forgot: SCOTUS and the New York Legal Wasteland (Turley)

In 1976, Saul Steinburg’s hilarious “View of the World from 9th Avenue” was published on the cover of the New Yorker. The map showed Manhattan occupying most of the known world with wilderness on the other side of the Hudson River between New York and San Francisco. The cartoon captured the distorted view New Yorkers have of the rest of the country. Roughly 50 years later, the image has flipped for many. With the Trump trial, Manhattan has become a type of legal wilderness where prosecutors use the legal system to hunt down political rivals and thrill their own supporters. New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) ran on a pledge to bag former president Donald Trump. (She also sought to dissolve the National Rifle Association.) Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg also pledged to get Trump. Neither specified how they would do it, but both were elected and both were lionized for bringing controversial cases against Trump.

Just beyond the Hudson River, the response to these cases has been far less positive. James secured an obscene civil penalty of almost half a billion dollars without having to show there was a single victim or dollar lost from alleged overvaluation of assets. Through various contortions, Bragg converted a dead misdemeanor case into 34 felonies in an unprecedented prosecution. New Yorkers and the media insisted that such selective prosecution was in defense of the “rule of law.” This week in the Supreme Court, a glimpse of the legal landscape outside of Manhattan came more sharply into view. It looked very different as the Supreme Court, with a strong conservative majority, defended the rights of defendants and upheld core principles that are being systematically gutted in New York. In Gonzalez v. Trevino, the court held in favor of Sylvia Gonzalez, who had been arrested in Castle Hills, Texas in 2019 on a trumped-up charge of tampering with government records. She had briefly misplaced a petition on a table at a public meeting.

This was a blatant case of selective prosecution by officials whom Gonzalez had criticized. She was the only person charged in the last 10 years under the state’s records laws for temporarily misplacing a document. She argued that virtually every one of the prior 215 felony indictments involved the use or creation of fake government IDs. Although the charges were later dropped, the case reeked of political retaliation and selective prosecution. There is no evidence that anyone else has faced such a charge in similar circumstances. Yet when she sued, the appellate court threw her case out, requiring Gonzales to shoulder an overwhelming burden of proof to establish selective prosecution for her political speech. The justices, on the other hand, reduced that burden, allowing Gonzalez to go back and make the case for selective prosecution.

Unlike the Trump case, the criminal charges against Gonzales were thrown out before trial. For Trump, selective prosecution claims were summarily dismissed, even though no case like Bragg’s appears to have ever been brought before. The Bragg case is raw political prosecution. No one seriously argues that Bragg would have brought this case against anyone other than Trump. Indeed, his predecessor rejected the case. Yet people were literally dancing in the streets when I came out of the courthouse after the verdict against Trump. In fact, the selectivity of the prosecution was precisely why it was so thrilling for New Yorkers. [..] It all comes down to the legal map. As even CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig observed, this case of contorting the law for a selective prosecution would not have succeeded outside of an anti-Trump district. On the New Yorker map circa 2024, once you cross the Hudson River eastward, you enter a legal wilderness.

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“..FAA investigators found dozens of quality-control shortcomings, including the use of dish soap and a hotel key card as makeshift tools.”

• Boeing Faces Possible Criminal Indictment – Reuters (RT)

The US Department of Justice (DOJ) is reportedly considering a criminal indictment of aerospace giant Boeing for allegedly violating the terms of a 2021 settlement that shielded the company from charges over airliner crashes that killed 346 people. Prosecutors have recommended to senior DOJ officials that charges be filed against Boeing, Reuters reported on Sunday, citing unnamed people familiar with the department’s deliberations. A decision on whether to prosecute the company is due by July 7. The DOJ claimed in a court filing last month that Boeing had breached a 2021 agreement over allegations that the company defrauded federal aviation authorities in connection with fatal 737 MAX airliner crashes in 2018 and 2019. Under the settlement, the aircraft maker avoided prosecution by agreeing to pay a $2.5 billion fine and implement new compliance and ethics practices to prevent violations of US fraud laws.

Boeing responded by arguing that it had honored the terms of the 2021 agreement. However, the company has suffered a spate of safety incidents in recent months, including an inflight blowout of a door panel on a 737 MAX 9 operated by Alaska Airlines. The Alaska scare occurred just two days before the DOJ settlement was scheduled to expire. Prosecutors had previously agreed to seek formal dismissal of the deferred fraud charge as long as Boeing complied with the deal’s terms over a three-year period. Apart from the legal compliance issues, Boeing has reportedly failed a federal safety audit of its manufacturing processes in the wake of the midair door blowout. The New York Times reported in March that Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) investigators found dozens of quality-control shortcomings, including the use of dish soap and a hotel key card as makeshift tools.

The FAA also launched a probe of possible falsification of inspection records at a Boeing factory in South Carolina. No final decision has been made by the DOJ on indicting Boeing, and internal discussions remain ongoing, Reuters said. Potential charges could go beyond the scope of the 2021 fraud settlement. One of the sources said other options include extending the earlier settlement agreement or imposing stricter compliance terms on Boeing. While the manufacturer might accept having an outside compliance monitor or paying a financial penalty, facing criminal charges or being forced to enter a guilty plea could be “too damaging” to its business, Reuters said. Boeing is a major defense contractor, and its government revenue might be jeopardized by a criminal conviction.

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“..when its economic foundation has eroded, it can only be maintained for so long by bluster and smoke and mirrors.”

• Death Of The Petrodollar: What Really Happened Between The US and Saudis? (RT)

It is said that works of fiction can often convey certain truths better than a newswire. That is perhaps the light in which to view reports circulating around the internet recently about the expiration of a 50-year ‘petrodollar’ treaty between the US and Saudi Arabia. The agreement is a piece of fiction. The spurious reports appear to have originated in India or in the murky tangle of websites aimed at crypto investors. There was an official agreement between the US and Saudi Arabia signed in June of 1974 and another, secret one reached later that year according to which the Saudis were promised military aid in exchange for recycling their oil proceeds into US Treasuries. The deal whereby Riyadh would sell its oil in dollars was informal, and there was no expiration date. The petrodollar system as we have come to known largely grew organically.

However, this fiction points to an underlying truth: the petrodollar has entered a long twilight from which there will be no return. No other economic arrangement has done more to ensure American preeminence over the last half-century. Yet in its essence it represented an implicit oil backing to the dollar that would be maintained. To borrow an idea originally expressed by financial analyst Luke Gromen, it is ultimately America’s inability and unwillingness to maintain this backing that is gradually dooming the system.

[..] We are now accustomed to the proliferation of unbacked currencies, so it’s hard to appreciate just how unusual the petrodollar arrangement was for a world long used to dealing with some form of gold standard. It’s one thing for a government to insist that a currency be accepted within its own borders, but to propose that another country part with real goods – such as oil – for money backed by absolutely nothing would have been a tough sell in past eras. Yet the US managed to do that and more. But such an arrangement would never have been sustainable for so long – longer than the gold-backed Bretton Woods lasted – based on military power and backroom dealings by cabals of diplomats alone. While Washington has always acted with a certain sense of impunity, believing there to be no viable alternative to the dollar, for the several-decade-long golden age of the petrodollar there was at least an economic justification for it. It worked well enough for the rest of the world that, until recently, no major bloc emerged to oppose it. There also was the long shadow of Paul Volcker to give it credibility.

However, just as the US reneged in 1971 on its obligation to convert dollars into gold, it later reneged on its implicit obligation to maintain the value of the dollar against oil. Since then, Washington has shed all semblances of fiscal restraint and any pretense of managing the dollar in the best interests of everyone. Instead, it now wields the greenback as a weapon in a desperate bid to roll back the very events it helped set in motion by not preserving the integrity of the currency in the first place.The US is now fighting to maintain all the benefits of this broken system, the responsibility for which it is neither equipped nor willing to take any longer. If the dollar isn’t pegged to gold and isn’t even implicitly backed by oil, and Washington won’t preserve its integrity, then it is hardly up to the task of facilitating trade in critical resources. A system as deeply entrenched as the petrodollar won’t disappear overnight, but when its economic foundation has eroded, it can only be maintained for so long by bluster and smoke and mirrors.

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“A decision against the government should lead to the release of many J-6 prisoners and perhaps lawsuits for malicious prosecution under the Federal Tort Claims Act..”

• Here It Comes (Kunstler)

Did you entertain feelings of doom during last week’s brain-withering heat-wave? The sheer anxious waiting and wishing for it to end was a nice analog to the stifling psycho-political miasma oppressing this nation — alternately known as the republic (for which we stand) and “our democracy,” as “Joe Biden” likes to style his regime of lawfare, warfare, and garish state-sponsored depravity. Well, rejoice and ring them bells! The political weather is breaking. The week ahead looks like an all-you-can-eat, steam-table banquet of consequence. The Supreme Court (SCOTUS) teased last week with an opening round of lesser decisions on bump stocks for rifles, abortion pills for women inconvenienced by motherhood, and a few other interesting cases. The court’s term draws to a close with the end of June. Pending are several cases liable to rattle the windows and shake down the walls.

One is the question as to whether the government can use private company proxies to censor constitutionally protected free speech (Murthy v. Missouri). The case has been simmering for years, with lower court actions that took a dim view of the intel blob’s coercive intrusions into social media. Probably the most galling part of the story is that virtually every act of censorship and de-platforming was committed against those telling the truth about some vital public issue, whether it was the danger and ineffectiveness of the Covid vaccines, or the probity of the 2020 elections, or the existence of Hunter Biden’s laptop and its dastardly contents. That is, the government’s actions were entirely in the service of lying to the American people. This raises a greater question that redounds from the courts onto the November election: just why is the US government so deeply invested in all that lying?

The answer is obvious: it has been engaged in nefarious activities that it seeks to hide and deny. And all of that has served to wreck the country. Even worse, the government has gaslit half of the public into cheerleading and rolling over for all that dishonesty, so as to keep them “safe” from hobgoblins such as “misinformation.” Considering “Joe Biden’s” cratering poll numbers, it looks like the public is tired of this incessant lying and is fixing to vote his regime out of office. We begin to see evidence that even some hardcore regime hacks are breaking out of that consensus trance, for instance, the Cuomo brothers denouncing the lies around lawfare and Covid. Andrew, once the New York state AG himself, told the shocked studio audience on Bill Maher’s HBO gabfest, beloved by Wokesters, that the Alvin Bragg case never should have been brought to trial. His brother Chris has been telling his podcast followers that Covid policy was a fiasco and the vaccines were harmful, and he apologized for his prior shifty reporting on all that when he had a CNN show.

Also upcoming at SCOTUS: Fischer v the United States, as to whether the DOJ tortured a federal statute on shredding financial records to overcharge J-6 rioters. In 2015 the court limited the scope of that law (part of the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley Act), but Attorney General Merrick Garland used it anyway as an all-purpose dragnet to prosecute hundreds of people who merely paraded through the US Capitol — which provided legal footing for the House J-6 committee to color that event dishonestly as “an insurrection.” A decision against the government should lead to the release of many J-6 prisoners and perhaps lawsuits for malicious prosecution under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA). It would also toss out the pertinent charges in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s DC case against Donald Trump for supposedly fomenting an “insurrection.”

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Lion
https://twitter.com/i/status/1805479152293708084

 

 

Hero
https://twitter.com/i/status/1805023820769550376

 

 

Newborn
https://twitter.com/i/status/1805227011545178183

 

 

 

 

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